MC Was Jesus Crucified

The Historical Case for the Crucifixion of Jesus

Hi, and welcome to Midnight Cry, a program that is committed to speaking the truth in love. I'm your host, Ramu Ghassan, and today we have with us Dr. James White, who will be discussing with us whether or not Jesus Christ was crucified.

First of all, welcome to the show, James. Great to be with you. Now, you've heard the topic.

What do you think? Was Jesus crucified? Well, you know, from a historical basis, whether you're talking about Christian scholars, conservative scholars, liberal scholars, atheists, it doesn't matter. From a historical perspective, there is no debate on this subject.

All of the sources agree that Jesus of Nazareth was crucified under the Romans in the early fourth decade of the first century, and in fact, some, like John Dominic Crossan, who is a well-known historical Jesus scholar, say this is one of the most fully established facts of history.

There are very few people, very few people in history, that we know as much about the means, time, and place of their death as Jesus the Messiah.

Now, this is a central subject for Muslims because they deny the crucifixion of Jesus. They say that He escaped death. Another person was crucified in His place. Are there any grounds for such a belief?

The only grounds I have found for such a belief are 40 Arabic words in the Qur 'an. Surah 4, verse 157, specifically speaking of the Jews, said that they boasted that they had killed Jesus, the Son of Mary, the Messiah, which I've always found odd that the Jews would even refer to Jesus as Messiah, but that's what it says.

And then it denies that He was killed or that He was crucified, but so it was made to appear to them, shabih al-lahm, which has been interpreted in so many different ways, even in the history of Islam.

But of a certainty, they killed Him not, is what the Qur 'an tells us. This is the only basis. This is the only foundation of a denial of the crucifixion. And what has happened is that Islamic apologists in the modern period have gone looking for some way of questioning the crucifixion of Jesus.

In the process, they have to adopt a radical skepticism about everything in history. And if they were to adopt that, we wouldn't be able to prove anyone in history died. I'm not sure where they went, but I think it's pretty clear that they died.

But the only thing they've been able to grab onto is in the second century, you have people starting to write from the perspective of Gnosticism. Now Gnosticism was an anti-Christian belief that is based on the concept of dualism, where everything that is spirit is good and everything that is physical is evil.

And so they had a doctrine of Jesus to where He did not have a physical body, because since He was a good person, He came from the true God, He could not have had a physical body because a physical body is evil.

And so they said that He only seemed to have a body, hence they were called docetists from the Greek term dokain, it only seemed to have a body. They would tell stories of Him and a disciple walking along the seashore, and only the disciple leaves footprints because Jesus only seemed to have a physical body, He wouldn't leave footprints in sand.

And so they quote from these Gnostic writers who present the idea that Jesus either left the body that He had been associated with, or just simply wasn't there. There's one Gnostic source that talks about Jesus standing on a hill nearby, His spirit form, watching the physical body and laughing because they think that they're crucifying Him.

And so that's the only kind of material that Islamic apologists can come up with.

Which is one source that refutes a fact that was well established by them.

The Gnostics were not trying to actually tell history. They are retelling history in light of their own mythology, and that is that Jesus really didn't have a physical body. And so these sources do not go back to the first century, and of course I find it really ironic that Muslims would quote Gnostic sources because if you look at what the Gnostics believed, the Muslims would have to identify them as kafirs, as unbelievers, because the Gnostics specifically identify any god who would create physical matter as being evil.

So from the Gnostic perspective, Allah would be an evil god. They would not believe in such a god. And so to quote sources like that as the only kind of source you can come up with to question the crucifixion of Jesus, that demonstrates some really, really shallow foundation upon which to be standing.

The Limits of Ancient Historical Evidence and the New Testament Witness

So then what does history actually tell us? Can we look at perhaps biblical and extra-biblical sources in being able to show that the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus was an established fact?

Well there are a couple sources there, but first let me comment on the nature of history. We have to remember that in the first century in Israel, in Jerusalem or Capernaum or whatever city there might be, there was no local newspaper.

There were no reporters running around filing reports. There were no video cameras or mp3 recorders. And the vast majority of humankind lived and died without anyone ever taking note in a written form that would come down to us today, the vast majority.

So the kind of evidence that history can give us is very different really all the way up to just a hundred years or so ago in comparison to what we would expect today. So there are no mp3 recordings, there are no pictures.

Even the idea of having eyewitness testimony to the life of almost anyone in that day is very, very unusual. Only a tiny percentage of mankind had that kind of story written about their own life. With that in mind then, we have four Gospels and we have other literature in the New Testament that has tremendous historical value.

So you're saying unless it was something that was supernatural, something that was of great importance, it really wouldn't be recorded?

No, I'm saying that the records themselves are so fragmentary, this is a long time ago, that only major events, important people, and even then, some of the most important people of history, the information we have about them comes from many generations after their life.

And so we just need to be careful about what we consider to be good historical information given the time period that we're talking about. There was no ancient CNN or whatever news networks someone might have back at that time.

And so we have the historical elements of the Gospels, and many times those are dismissed because the Gospels are seeking to communicate theological truth and therefore, well, you must have an agenda, therefore it's irrelevant.

That is not how you do history. Any historical work that I can think of was written by a person who had some kind of religious belief back then. Even the Greek and the Roman historians, Tastus, Pliny, Suetonius, all these people had religious beliefs and frequently recorded miracles as if they were just something that happened every day.

And we don't dismiss them because of that, but when it comes to the New Testament, for some odd reason, people are willing to do that. And so we need to look at the New Testament, the New Testament is the best information we have, bar none.

And of course, for the Muslim, I just simply point out once again that Surah 547 tells the Al-Anjeel to judge by what's contained therein. And if I judge Surah 4, 157 in the Qur 'an by what is found in the Anjeel, I have to reject Surah 4, 157, which, by the way, can I just note in passing before I get back to the historical materials, those 40 Arabic words in the Qur 'an, they contradict the natural reading of Surah 355, Surah 1933.

If that one ayah was not in the Qur 'an, then the Qur 'an would naturally speak of Jesus's death. But because it's there, those other texts are reinterpreted in light of that one ayah. And it's important to realize that when the hadith were collected over the next couple of hundred years, no one remembered anything that Muhammad had ever said about that one ayah.

There's no hadith commentary on Surah 4, 157. Now that's very significant to me because we know that in the compilation of the Qur 'an, for example, according to Sahih al-Bukhari, Volume 6, 509, 510, there were a couple of times where an entire ayah had been missed by everyone and was found with one person.

And so were there other verses that referred to more of this information? Or did this one just come in from someone's memory that was an incorrect memory? I mean, who knows? Since the Qur 'an was not collected into a written source during Muhammad's lifetime, who's to know?

Forty Arabic words, no Muslims for hundreds of years could remember anything Muhammad ever said about them. And so it's a very slim basis upon which to be denying the historical evidence, certainly a slim basis upon which to be denying even the New Testament evidence, because the New Testament books come so much more closely to the time of the events.

I just ask Muslims to understand what they're asking Christians to do. We're supposed to abandon everything we believe about the crucifixion of Jesus, which is based upon eyewitness testimony that goes back to the very time of the events itself, on the basis of 40 Arabic words written half a millennium later, 765 miles away, from someone who had no access to the actual time period of the crucifixion.

I mean, I've likened it to, I've asked my Muslim friends, I've said, what if someone came along 700 years after Muhammad and said, the hijrah never took place? And when you ask them why, all they say is, because I'm a prophet.

Would you just immediately abandon belief in the hijrah just because some guy comes along 700 years later and calls himself a prophet and says it didn't happen? That's what you're asking us to do in regards to the crucifixion.

So it's important to keep the real foundation of the Islamic denial of the crucifixion in mind. But outside of the New Testament, there is a tremendous amount of information. You can look at the testimony of Ignatius of Antioch, who died in 107 and 108, who's specifically referred to the death of Christ.

The epistle of Clement to the Corinthians, which could be as early as A .D. 95. So this is very, very early. This is almost contemporaneous with some of the writings of the apostle John, possibly, that some people will put at the end of the first century.

He clearly made reference to the common belief of Christians in the death of Jesus in these words, quote, Jesus Christ, our Lord, in accordance with God's will, gave his blood for us and his flesh for our flesh and his life for our lives.

That's the 49th verse of his epistle. So Ignatius and Clement are the very first generation of Christians, and they have absolutely no problem whatsoever referring to the death of Christ, the giving of his life, the shedding of his blood.

It is part and parcel of what they believe, which, of course, is consistent with what the New Testament text itself teaches. Now another early Christian leader by the name of Polycarp made reference to the death of Christ in his letters as well, and he's dated concurrently with Ignatius and Clement.

So you've got three different extra-biblical sources amongst Christians. And then you have Josephus, who was the great Jewish historian. So he wasn't a Christian. He was not a Christian, and he makes reference to Jesus in his book Antiquities, Book 28, Sections 63 -64.

And even though some people would question if there has been some tampering with his material by later generations, his reference to Jesus' death is not a part of what is really considered to be a questionable source.

So he makes reference to Jesus' death. That's around A .D. 85. And then Tacitus, the Roman historian, writing around A .D. 115, makes derogatory reference to the early Christian movement and mentions the founder of the movement had been crucified under Pontius Pilate during the reign of Tiberius.

And so you have Roman sources, you have Jewish sources that make reference to the death of Jesus. And basically, if you put the death of Christ somewhere around A .D. 30, we really don't actually know the exact year, but around A .D. 30, for the first 100 years, all the sources say the same thing.

They all refer to Jesus as the crucified one, as the one who died under Pontius Pilate, etc., etc. Then, at the end of that time period, the Gnostics start writing, and for theological reasons that no Muslim could ever share, that is, Docetism, many of them deny the virgin birth, that God couldn't have anything to do with creation, things that they would find to be just abhorrent false teachings.

But on the basis of those abhorrent false teachings, they start denying the crucifixion of Jesus, but not in the Islamic way. Because in the Islamic way, and of course we need to, I think, be fair here, because there are Western Muslims who will not go so far as to say that someone was substituted in Jesus' place.

That is the majority Islamic perspective, by far, especially in the Islamic world. But there are Western scholars who recognize there's a problem here. Think about it. If the majority view of Muslims is correct, and someone was put in Jesus' place and made to look like him, normally the candidate is Judas Iscariot.

I had a Muslim once who sent me a long paper demonstrating that Simon of Cyrene was the one who was actually put upon the cross. But someone was made to look like Jesus and crucified in his place. The substitution theory has a major problem to it, and that is, it results in you having to believe that Allah started Christianity by mistake.

He did such a good job, he not only convinced the Jews, he convinced the Romans, and he convinced the disciples of Jesus, so much so that they went out and started preaching the resurrection, and that Jesus had risen from the dead.

And if a Muslim believes that Christianity results in acts of shirk, idolatry, then Allah is directly responsible for having started one of the greatest sources of idolatry ever in the substitution. And so, in my experience, many Western Muslim leaders will go, Allahu alim, God knows, we really don't know.

All we can affirm is that Jesus was not crucified. How that fits with any of the historical evidence is left dangling.

The Voluntary Death of Jesus and the Stumbling Block of the Cross

Now, from a theological standpoint, I think logically where the problem is, is in the Muslim mindset, because many Muslims, when you do speak openly about the subject, they'll say, look, it's quite inglorious for God to allow a prophet of God, someone who is revered and special to God, to be able to die in such a horrific and terrible way.

So the question is, why, both from a theological standpoint and also from a standpoint of someone who is looking at this as an outsider?

How do you explain that? Yeah, I've had missionaries tell me that they can be walking down the central road in a village in Uganda and start talking with Muslims about this subject, and one of the first things they'll say is, but how could such a mighty prophet be allowed to die in such an ignoble way?

And so you're exactly right, that is one of the fundamental problems that they have. That's why when I speak with Muslims and when I teach Christians to speak with Muslims on this issue, we must emphasize the biblical teaching that Jesus gave his life voluntarily.

This was not taken from him. He did this of his own accord. He says in the Gospel of John, no one takes my life from me, I give it of my own accord. He does it freely. In fact, everything that Jesus does, he says he did freely.

Yes, he is sent by the Father, that is, he has the Father's authority, but Philippians chapter 2 says he humbled himself, he made himself of no reputation. He became obedient unto the point of death, even death on a cross, and most scholars feel those words that Paul quotes in Philippians chapter 2 are part of an ancient hymn, a fragment of an ancient hymn of the church that goes back to the very earliest decades of the church.

So from the very beginning, even the music, the singing of the Christian people spoke of the voluntary giving of Christ. And so it's vitally important to realize that the New Testament understands that Islamic concern and says the world stumbles, that the Jews stumble at a crucified Messiah, it's called a skandalon, something that causes you to stumble and fall.

The purpose for that is God's purpose. He wants people to stumble at that point so that when you see it, it causes you to stop and to truly ponder and realize what God has done in Jesus Christ, and to not think it's the wisdom of the world.

It's not the way that the world would have done it. God in his wisdom has chosen that the world by its wisdom will not come to know him. Instead, it's through the foolishness of preaching that God saves those who believe, so that no one can boast in front of somebody else.

No one can say, oh, well, the reason I'm right with God is because I was able to reason my way through, and I came to the proper philosophical conclusion. No, it's what's called the foolishness of preaching that God uses to save those who believe.

So Jesus wasn't a victim of circumstance. This was something that was sought out, that was thought out in eternity. This was God's plan. We read early on in the scriptures, and that's where we can see the harmony of the scriptures, whether it's Psalm 22 or Isaiah 53, predicting that Jesus, this Messiah that would come, the anointed one, he would die a terrible death.

And so we see that the purposeful mission of Jesus was his death. But we still haven't answered why. Why death? I mean, most Muslims know that Christians teach and say that the only way we can be forgiven of our sins is through the death of Jesus.

Why must someone die in order to be forgiven? I think this is really the crux of it, because people are confused at this point. How is someone's death to give life? How does that work?

Isaiah 53, Substitution, and the Forgiveness of Sin

Well, you know, the text that you cited that I think is just so beautiful, it's Isaiah chapter 53, it really is explained in that text. And that is, it is said there that the Lord lays upon this servant, this self-sacrificing servant, the iniquity of us all.

The chastening for our well-being, our healing was laid upon him. By his stripes we are healed. There is this concept of substitution, not the substitution theory of the Quran, but the concept of substitution, one person taking the place of another.

But in this instance, it is one who does not bear any guilt before God. He is not under the wrath of God, and therefore he is able to take the place of others because he voluntarily does so. God's law requires punishment.

Muslims like to say, well, God can simply forgive. Well, the problem is they are left with a law of God and the justice of God being utterly unfulfilled to where sinful creatures can trample upon God's very glory, and there is no price to be paid.

I think fundamentally, Islam grossly underestimates the value of God's holiness and glory to God himself, because in Christianity, God has extended himself to the point of the incarnation and taking on the debt by his own son.

So can a Muslim see that? Can a Muslim see the severity of sin, the sinfulness of sin? Do they understand that sin is the problem of humanity?

Well, they certainly understand that sin is a problem, but how sin can be forgiven and the necessity of God's fulfillment of his own law has been lost. You can say all day long that Allah is oft forgiving and merciful, and you can repeat that all the time, but the fact of the matter is there still is no way of knowing that you have had forgiveness in the sight of God and that you will enter into paradise unless you die in jihad.

That is the only way that is given in the Quran to have any type of confirmation that when you die, you will immediately enter into the presence of God. So while they recognize sin, and they recognize God's wrath, and they recognize the possibility of experiencing hellfire for eternity, because of the rejection of what God has done in Jesus Christ, they have no mediator.

They have no one who can stand in the gap. They have no one who can offer them that kind of forgiveness that they need to have because of the rejection of who Jesus Christ is. And so emphasizing the fact that it is Christ's voluntary self-giving, I think has helped a lot of people to get over that objection because when someone says, well, how could God have allowed such a mighty prophet to have died in such an ignoble way?

It was the Father's will, and it was the Son's will. It was not something that just happened. It wasn't something outside of God's control. It was purposeful on the part of the Father and of the Son that Jesus die in the way that He did so that He can provide perfect salvation for sinners.

Yes, and I think it's so important to be able to understand that because that is really the key for salvation. And the very thing that we find, whether it be in Islam or in some of the other religions, is that they do deny the purpose of Jesus.

Jesus was a moral man. He was a prophet. He was a great teacher. And I think there are so many people who have lovely thoughts of Jesus, but if they don't understand Him to be Savior, their Savior, then they really don't have salvation apart from Him.

I like to point my Muslim friends to an incident in Jesus' life recorded in the Gospel of John chapter 8, where Jesus is talking to Jews who are no farther away from Him than you are from Me. The Jews would have accepted Jesus as a prophet.

They might have even accepted Him as a Messiah in some senses, but what they would not accept is what He said about Himself. In John chapter 8, He said, You will die in your sins, for unless you believe that I am— 'ego ime' in the Greek, anahu in Hebrew—unless you believe that I am, you will die in your sins.

Now what does that mean? They would have accepted Him as a prophet because He could raise the dead. I mean, He could still the storm. He could open blind eyes. Pretty hard to argue that you're not a prophet in situations like that.

But they would not accept Jesus' revelation of who He Himself was. And Jesus said, Unless you believe that I am—and that phrase, I am, anahu, is used as a name of God in the prophet Isaiah. In fact, Isaiah 43 .10, when God is revealing what He's going to do in the future, He says He's doing this so that you may see it and believe that, anahu, I am.

And that phrase goes all the way back to Exodus 3, when God revealed Himself to Moses in the burning bush and says, I am that I am. So Jesus used this language of Himself, and He said, Unless you believe that I am, you will die in your sins.

Because of Muhammad and his teachings, Muslims cannot believe that Jesus is the I am. And that therefore, what is Jesus' word? You will die in your sins. I don't want to die in my sins. I want my sins to be taken care of.

If I die in my sins, now I'm responsible for them. And I cannot pay that debt before a holy God. That's why we must believe the truth about who Jesus Christ was. A truth that is denied by the Islamic teachings on the subject.

Yes. James, thank you for your time.

Thank you. Now, we're saying these things because we honestly do believe that we are speaking the truth in love. Our purpose is not to offend any person. But we believe these things to be so, and we can see through history, through biblical and extra-biblical history, that Jesus Christ was crucified.

But if you want to find out why, you need to read the Gospels. You need to read the biblical account. Please stay in tune for the very next episode of Midnight Cry, as we discuss who is the greatest model in history.

Until then, may God bless you.