The Quran

157

Preface

وَقَولِهِم إِنّا قَتَلنَا المَسيحَ عيسَى ابنَ مَريَمَ رَسولَ اللَّهِ وَما قَتَلوهُ وَما صَلَبوهُ وَلٰكِن شُبِّهَ لَهُم ۚ وَإِنَّ الَّذينَ اختَلَفوا فيهِ لَفي شَكٍّ مِنهُ ۚ ما لَهُم بِهِ مِن عِلمٍ إِلَّا اتِّباعَ الظَّنِّ ۚ وَما قَتَلوهُ يَقينًا

Yusuf Ali

That they said (in boast), “We killed Christ Jesus the son of Mary, the Messenger of God.;- but they killed him not, nor crucified him,¹ 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:-

The end of the life of Jesus on earth is as much involved in mystery as his birth, and indeed the greater part of his private life, except the three main years of his ministry. It is not profitable to discuss the many doubts and conjectures among the early Christian sects and among Muslim theologians.The Orthodox-Christian Churches make it a cardinal point of their doctrine that his life was taken on the Cross, that he died and was buried, that on the third day he rose in the body with his wounds intact, and walked about and conversed, and ate with his disciples, and was afterwards taken up bodily to heaven. This is necessary for the theological doctrine of blood sacrifice and vicarious atonement for sins, which is rejected by Islam. But some of the early Christian sects did not believe that Christ was killed on the Cross. The Basilidans believed that someone else was substituted for him. The Docetae held that Christ never had a real physical or natural body, but only an apparent or phantom body, and that his Crucifixion was only apparent, not real. The Marcionite Gospel (about A.C. 138) denied that Jesus was born, and merely said that he appeared in human form. The Gospel of St. Barnabas supported the theory of substitution on the Cross. The Qur-ānic teaching is that Christ was not crucified nor killed by the Jews, notwithstanding certain apparent circumstances which produced that illusion in the minds of some of his enemies; that disputatious, doubts, and conjectures on such matters are vain; and that he was taken up to God (see 4:158 and 3:55).