• Jesus told His disciples explicitly on at least three occasions (Matthew 16:21; 17:22; 20:17) that He was going to Jerusalem to be crucified (yes, He used that word), but would rise from the dead. Why would Jesus say that if He had no intention of going through with it?
• Four independent authors reported the details of the crucifixion. At least one (John) was a direct eyewitness, another was a disciple, and two others obtained their information from eyewitnesses.
• Thousands of people who were gathered in Jerusalem for the Passover witnessed the event.
• Jesus’ own mother and His best friend (again, John) were direct witnesses at the foot of the cross. (John 19:25-27) If anyone would know that it was really Jesus on the cross, they would.
• A Roman soldier pierced Jesus’ side to be sure He was dead. They would normally have broken His legs, causing Him to suffocate, but did not need to because He was already dead.
• Two Pharisees who were followers of Jesus, Nicodemus, and Joseph of Arimathea, prepared Jesus for burial. Jesus was placed in Joseph’s sepulcher. By handling the body, they would have known whether it was Jesus or not and whether He was really dead.
• According to Islamic tradition (it’s not in the Qur’an or hadiths), Judas was made to look like Jesus and supposedly died in Jesus’ place. However, the Bible records that Judas hanged himself (Matthew 27:5) before Jesus’ crucifixion and his body fell from the place of hanging and split open so that his innards gushed out! (Acts 1:18) His substitution on the cross would be contradictory.
THE QUR’AN 4:157 LOGIC TRAP
The Qur’an implies that Allah only made it appear that Jesus died on the cross, whatever that means.
If everyone was made to believe that Jesus died on the cross and rose again, when in fact He did not, this then would have been a massive lie by Allah, actually resulting in the birth and growth of Christianity.
On the other hand, if Jesus really did die on the cross and rise again, and Allah said 600 years later that the event did not happen, this also would be a lie by Allah.
In either case, Allah is shown to be a liar. But God by nature and definition cannot lie. So Allah cannot be the true God.
Linwood Kemp