Settling Jesus Muslim/Christian misunderstanding

One of the largest areas where Muslims and Christians think that they disagree is regarding whether or not Jesus Christ died. This is actually not an area of disagreement; it is an area of misunderstanding. There actually is no disagreement, but the logic has been clouded because both sides do not understand the context of events and the word of God in each other's holy book, the Bible and the Qur'an.

The Bible, specifically the New Testament, records the actual historic events and teachings of Jesus. I've explained in previous blog postings that the New Testament books use "witnessing," which is the God given method of attesting truth given to all the children of Abraham, thus including Muslim, Christian and Jewish faiths. So one can be certain as to the events as they are described in the Gospel books of the New Testament.

Likewise the Muslim people through their Prophet (PBUH) were gifted with the truth as transmitted by God through agency of the archangel Gabriel into the form of the Qur'an. It is not a coincidence that the angel who announced the maternity of Mary with Jesus is also the angel who God chose to use to reconnect the people who descended from Abraham to the divine word of God, which would become Islam. Both the Bible and the Qur'an, therefore, are correct and to be completely trusted.

So why is it that Christians assert that Jesus died, while Muslims assert that he did not? Here is why. God wanted the Muslims to be gifted with the truth in all matters. The slander of the time of both Jesus, and the Prophet (PBUH) and to this day is that Jesus died. It is a slander because the claim is that he died and remained dead in his body. Here is how the slander started, as documented by St. Matthew, one of the twelve Apostles in his Gospel written only around ten years after the crucifixion of Jesus.

St. Matthew 28: 11-15

Now while they were going, behold, some of the guard came into the city and reported to the chief priests all that had happened. And when they had assembled with the elders, and had consulted together, they gave much money to the soldiers, telling them, "Say, 'His disciples came by night and stole him while we were sleeping.' and if the procurator hears of this, we will persuade him and keep you out of trouble." And they took the money, and did as they were instructed; and this story has been spread abroad among the Jews even to the present day.

St. Matthew here is documenting that for the decade after the crucifixion and ascension of Jesus into heaven, the Jewish authorities had paid for the guards to spread the lie that Jesus had died and his body has been stolen, and there was no resurrection or ascension. But the Qur'an documents that Jesus did ascend to heaven, agreeing with the Gospel accounts that all witness the resurrection and ascension.

Therefore the parts in the Qur'an that state that Jesus did not die refer to this slander that he did die "in total." I won't cite the Qur'an passages here since I'm really just trying to help point Christians and Muslims into the right direction to interpret the perceived, but not real, difference. Also I know when I provide Muslims with pertinent Bible scripture references and content I am being the most helpful. I don't expect each faith to be experts in each other's faith, but I suspect that the great scholarship and diligence by the Islamic scholars who are participating in this dialogue will result in them being very much expert in the key Biblical references and sources.

I am not trying to raise old wounds with the Jewish brethren by explaining what has historically happened, but I have to give the Christians and Muslims the facts in order for them to realize they are not actually in disagreement on this point. Much of the Qur'an references to Christianity ponders why if it was not the true faith that it did not take root. At the time of the Prophet's revelation (PBUH) from God, Christianity had spread but not among the Jews beyond those who originally converted in the first hundred years after Jesus. This is because the lie that Jesus had died and stayed dead had been well promulgated as St. Matthew attested in the Gospel. Now it is the secularists and non-believers who spread this lie, mostly for TV and book money making opportunities.

I hope that my brothers and sisters working on this essential dialogue and scholarship are doing well and I send them my fondest greetings. I hope that this explanation is of help to you all.

Oh, one further thought. I know that one barrier that Muslims feel, due to their great faith in God and reverence for his Prophets and saints, to believing that Jesus was actually put to death for the several days that he was in the tomb, is a great uncomfort with why God would allow such a degradation and death, even temporary as it was, of his great prophet Jesus, born of Mary by overshadowing of the Holy Spirit himself. The reason is very simple and straightforward. Jesus was the first and the only to demonstrate with his body that people should have faith in God and the reality of heaven. Jesus showed the people for the first and only time in salvation history that even the most terrible and unjust death can be endured, and that the soul returns to God, assuming that the deceased is just and believes. Jesus demonstrated, notably to St. Thomas the Apostle who placed his hand in the wounds of Jesus that one's faith in God is justified: there is a real death of the body, but there is eternal life in the Kingdom of God in heaven. This is why Jesus showed all who witnessed that even a terrible death is not final. It is God's great mercy that allowed Jesus to experience a public death so that all understand that all humans in mortal bodies must die, but that Jesus through the Holy Spirit conquered death by resurrecting and ascending into heaven. So it is not a matter of why would God allow something so disrespectful and not all-powerful to happen to his prophet Jesus, son of Mary by overshadowing with the Holy Spirit, but it is that Jesus shows where all can, if they believe "follow him." By believe I mean what he taught, which is all of God and God's kingdom and mercy. So the public death was not a disgrace but of Jesus showing all who saw and believed that God and life after death are real. There are many mentions by Jesus in the Gospel of him showing the way. He means that both spiritually but also literally. He literally was telling people that he will "show them the way" by demonstrating with his own body the way through death and to the eternal Kingdom of God.

I hope this additional perspective and clarification is helpful.