Was Jesus Crucified?

Was Jesus Crucified?

A subject raised by the renown late Ahmed Deedat who passed away monday the 8th of August 2005 , may Allah grant him Jannah.

when i first converted to Islam i began studying Ahmed Deedats material which now has led me to further activities in the field of comparative religion, so i think its only right to pay a tribute to my teacher by touching on this subject.

The topic was Christ Crucified i have learnt from Ahmed Deedat, however the material i present may differ from the view of my teacher in certain areas, Ahmed Deedat taught me to learn and memorise his material and also to correct wherever nessecary and even i have imperfections that i hope the people that learn from me correct.

I have also studyed Christian missionarys who have written publications in refutation of Ahmed Deedats material and learnt a great deal from what they had to say aswell.

I begin with the name of Allah

PART ONE - WHAT WAS THE SIGN OF JONAH

We read in (Matthew Ch. 12 verses 38 – 40) that the Jewish priests were asking of a sign and in reply Jesus told them that he would show them no sign except one and that would be the sign of Jonah, for as Jonah was in the belly of the whale three days and three nights so shall the son of man be (referring to himself) in the heart of the earth three days and three nights.

The sign of Jonah can be found in the book of Jonah in the Bible where Prophet Jonah was sent to Nineveh in order to tell them to repent and turn back towards God, however Jonah knew the nature of these people and feared what they would do to him.

Prophet Jonah set of on a journey elsewhere overseas when a storm subsided at sea, Jonah being the humble servant of Allah admits his responsibility to the people on board that the storm was in response to his action so Jonah asks the people to throw him overboard (Jonah 1:12)

However the people onboard was hesitant to do so, so they came to the idea to draw lots and the lot fell upon Jonah so eventually they threw him overboard into the raging sea (Ch 1 verse 15) The miracle was that Jonah survived being thrown into the raging sea, when you would expected him to have been killed he survived.

After that Jonah was swallowed by a whale (1:17) in which we would expect one to die but yet we find that Jonah prayed from the belly of the whale (2:1) and again the whale vomited Jonah upon the seashore and Jonah too survived this ordeal (2:10)

The sign of Jonah was that you would expect him to die but yet he survived and this is a miracle within itself. Jesus simply told the Jews as Jonah was in the belly of the whale for three days and three nights, so shall the son of man be…(Matthew 12:40) Jesus was referring to Jonahs physical state, Jonah was alive and not dead.

Christian theologians make a poor point when attempting to refute this position by drawing comparison with John 3:14 where Jesus says ‘And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness so shall the son of man be lifted up’ Jesus wasn’t referring to the state of the serpent but he was drawing comparison with the lifting of the serpent in connection with how God would raise him up alive as the Qur’an says ‘Allah raised him to himself (4:158) meaning that God would raise him as Moses lifted up the serpent.

Using the analogy that the serpent was dead in attempt to refute the living state of Jonah is absolutely fruitless due to the fact that Jesus said ‘As Jonah was (Alive) in the belly of the whale so shall the son of man be’ Jesus was referring to Jonahs state whereas with the lifting of the serpent Jesus was referring to the ascension.

THE TIME FACTOR

Another objection would be that Jesus was referring to a time factor and that Jesus was referring to the three days and three nights and not the state that Jonah was in the belly of the whale, however this is quickly refuted by counting how many days and nights on your fingers.

Christians annually celebrate good Friday because they believe that Christ was crucified on this day, they also believe that Jesus was taken down of the cross and given a Jewish burial before the new day of Sabbath had started which began at sunset due to the fact that in the Jewish calendar the new day begins at the moment when the sun sinks below the horizon.

Unlike the secular day, the Jewish day begins with night and ends with day. According to the gospels, Mary Magdalene went to the tomb just before sunrise the day after the Sabbath to find the tomb empty.

We will now find that when we do the calculations of these days and nights according to the statement of Jesus ‘three days and three nights’ they don’t add up.

Friday day : Jesus was taken down from the cross and placed in the tomb just before sunset. Jews believe that an "onan" (any part of the day) is considered a full day, so here we have Day 1

Friday night: The Sabbath has began, and Jesus is in the tomb Night 1

Saturday morning: the day of Sabbath, Jesus is in the tomb: Day 2

Saturday night: the Sabbath has now finished, Mary Magdalene went to the tomb just before sunrise and finds the tomb empty: Night 2

In total we have two days and two nights .

Christian theologians have attempted to brush this off by saying that it was an Hebrew figure of speech or a metaphor, however according to the Jewish reckoning of time, the evening before the day is indeed the beginning of the new calendar day and the observance of all Jewish holidays begin in the evening indicating that they count night and days.

The Bible also informs us of the flood which according to (Genesis 7:4) it rained upon the earth forty days and forty nights, and again we are told that Moses was in the mount forty days and forty nights (Exd 34:2 To say that three days and three nights is a Jewish metaphor or a figure of speech falls short of any logical explanation.

Jesus made it perfectly clear that ‘as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the earth, so shall the son of man be three days and three nights in the belly of the earth’.

In conclusion to this point, Jesus stated that he would be alive in the belly of the earth for three days and three nights just as Jonah was alive in the belly of the whale for three days and three nights.