thanx Akhi for telling me the reason why you lean to the substitution claim now I understand you better...
We shouldn't accept the substitution claim and we could come to other conclusion for some reasons:
1- No doubt The substitution narration which neither be found in the quran nor the Sunna in the book of Tafsir comes from Gnosticism
"He whom you saw on the tree, glad and laughing, this is the living Jesus. But this one into whose hands and feet they drive the nails is his fleshly part, which is the substitute being put to shame, the one who came into being in his likeness. But look at him and me."
the Gnostic Apocalypse of Peter
Applying such Gnostic concept to the Quran seems problematic, the verse tells:
And because of their saying: We slew the Messiah, Jesus son of Mary, Allah's messenger - they slew him not nor crucified him, but it appeared so to them; and
those who disagree concerning it are in doubt of it; they have no knowledge of it save pursuit of conjecture; they slew him not for certain. [Qur'an: 4-157]
When important figure, who been hated by many, disappears suddenly from the scene, conjecture comes to the scene.....
The verse affirms
they have no knowledge but conjecture
If Judas was crucified in front of them, then we have here knowledge (even if false knowledge) and not conjecture...
we can understand their doubt whether he was crucified or not ,as long as they never witnessed that, and the man disappeared and they listened to conjecture......
The absence of Jesus would make them in doubt and be victims to conjecture, just as the absence of famous figures, who have lots of enemies,
I remember once there was conjecture that Ben laden has died, and his friend been killed and some people believed such conjecture and continued believing that till they found new message from him!!!
Had he stayed silent forever, you would find claims as, it was someone else similar to him, who been killed etc......
People followed conjecture after the departure of Jesus :
Some thought he was killed....
Others thought he been substituted on the cross...
Others thought he married Maria Magdalena...
Etc…..
Had the man been killed and been witnessed by his enemies and his friends alike, there wouldn’t had been such disagreement on how his mission terminated !!
The matter, according to the Quran, is conjecture and doubts which been experienced by those who witnessed nothing.
And we have so called witnesses to resurrection too, would we as Muslims accept such accounts? No, because.
Will they not, then, try to understand this Qur'an? Had it issued from any but God, they would surely have found in it
many an inner contradiction! (Holy Quran 4:82)
:wa:
