Did Jesus die on the Cross?
As a Muslim, there was one thing I had always believed that would make
Christianity completely invalid, regardless of anything else. According to
Qur'an, Christ did not die on the cross.
That they said "We killed Christ Jesus the son of Mary, the Messenger of
Allah." But they killed him not, nor crucified him, . of a surety they
killed him not. (Al-Qur'an 4:157-158)
If Christ did not die on the Cross, then Christianity is without question
a
vain belief, even according to Paul himself! Paul said that if Christ was
not raised from the dead, then the faith of a Christian is worthless (1
Corinthians 15:17). Of course, His resurrection requires His death, and so
Paul is stating that if Christ did not die on the cross, then the
Christian
faith is worthless.
Thus we are presented with a question: "Which is right-the Qur'an or the
Bible?" Of course, if I were to pick the Qur'an without perusing the
evidence, I would not be searching for the truth; rather, I would be
robotically defending what I had prejudicially taken as the truth. After
investigating the facts surrounding the crucifixion of Christ, I was
amazed
by how incontrovertibly clear it is that He did die on the cross, a fact
which is considered by some historians to be among the best established
facts of history. Based on the first century evidence (including both
Christian and non-Christian sources), as well as our historical knowledge
about Roman crucifixion, there turns out to be no rational way to deny the
death of Jesus. Any notion that says otherwise requires an elaborate
conspiracy theory of some sort, and even those fail because the
conspirators
would have been His apostles, the very disciples who were quite obviously
convinced of the truth of the Gospel message.
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