The Muslim Claim:
There are strong evidences that Jesus did not die:
My response to TK
You next comment:
“2) he was placed in a spacious tomb, not buried underground, so he could breathe normally and start healing, just like Jonas did after being expelled from the belly of the fish”
You are most correct that Jesus was placed, not buried, in Joseph of Arimathea’s new tomb wherein never a man was laid.
Luke 23:53
53 And he took it down, and wrapped it in linen, and laid it in a sepulchre that was hewn in stone, wherein never man before was laid.
King James Version
This hardly establishes your supposition that this indicates Jesus had not already died. This supposition is sometimes called the “swoon theory.” This theory is mistaken because it cannot account for all the facts presented in the historical record contained in the Gospels.
I find it most interesting to consider carefully the testimony presented in the Gospel of John, particularly John 20:6, 7, 8,
Joh 20:6 Then cometh Simon Peter following him, and went into the sepulchre, and seeth the linen clothes lie,
Joh 20:7 And the napkin, that was about his head, not lying with the linen clothes, but wrapped together in a place by itself.
Joh 20:8 Then went in also that other disciple, which came first to the sepulchre, and he saw, and believed.
I placed the following note in my digital book, The Ultimate Cross Reference Treasury, for the phrase “wrapped together. or, rolled, or coiled round and round, found in John 20:7,
wrapped together. or, rolled, or coiled round and round. Gr. entulissō (S# G1794). Used elsewhere, only in Mat 27:59 and Luk 23:53 of the linen cloth. Here it implies that the cloth had been folded around the head as a turban is folded, and that it lay still in the form of a turban. The linen clothes also lay exactly as they were when swathed round the body. The Lord had passed out of them, not needing, as Lazarus (Joh 11:44), to be loosed. It was this sight that convinced John (Joh 20:8) [CB].
These statements of precise details which could only be known and recorded by the direct experience of eye-witnesses who were there, demonstrate we are reading historical record, not fabricated fable written long after by an unknown author.
TK responded to me:
the “unknown author” is your Creator.. so take care in your speech.. don’t insult and mock your Creator
I responded to TK on Saturday, June 18, 2022:
You are the one who is making the unsubstantiated claim that the Four Gospels were each written by an unknown author, not me!
I continued and concluded my responses to the six claims of TK:
Continuing from above, you further commented:
“3) Mary went to the tomb with tonnes of myrhh, a healing herb. Why did she bring them if he’s already dead?”
Your reasoning is entirely mistaken. Mary went to the tomb with the purpose of completing the burial preparations for the body of our Lord Jesus Christ because those preparations were left incomplete by the onset of the Sabbath.
This shows that Mary knew with certainty where the tomb was. This shows Mary knew that Jesus had most certainly died upon the cross. This shows that she, like the other disciples, had not understood the repeated prediction that Jesus had made that He would rise bodily from the dead on the third day.
“4) he did not walk through the tomb walk, he rolled the door, meaning he was not a ghost”
Once again, you are failing to read the text of Scripture carefully. Since Jesus exited his grave clothes or wrappings, leaving them perfectly intact (the very remarkable fact John personally observed which caused him to believe when he saw the grave clothes both empty and intact, John 20:6, 7, 8 which I cited above), Jesus left the tomb in the same manner. When Mary reached the tomb, though all the while on her journey she wondered how she would gain entrance, she found the tomb already opened and two angels seated therein (John 20:11, 12),
Joh 20:11 But Mary stood without at the sepulchre weeping: and as she wept, she stooped down, and looked into the sepulchre,
Joh 20:12 And seeth two angels in white sitting, the one at the head, and the other at the feet, where the body of Jesus had lain.
In the same manner, our Lord Jesus Christ entered the locked room where the disciples were gathered “for fear of the Jews,”
John 20:19
19 Then the same day at evening, being the first day of the week, when the doors were shut where the disciples were assembled for fear of the Jews, came Jesus and stood in the midst, and saith unto them, Peace be unto you.
King James Version
Our Lord Jesus Christ was clearly able to do some things in His glorified and resurrected body that we cannot do in our natural human bodies.
“5) his wounds were visible to the disciples, which means he wasn’t in any glorified body that humans take on after resurrection”
As I thoroughly answered you on this point before, you are once again misreading the text. If Jesus were yet in the sickly, weakened and wounded body you imagine, He could hardly have presented Himself in such a condition as a gloriously resurrected body who had defeated death itself!
The marks or scars left visible on His resurrected body served as the full proof that He was the very same Jesus they had known but who now stood before them in His very same but now gloriously resurrected body as Luke carefully relates (Luke 24:38, 39):
Luk 24:38 And he said unto them, Why are ye troubled? and why do thoughts arise in your hearts?
Luk 24:39 Behold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself: handle me, and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have.
Thomas, who was not present when Jesus first showed Himself alive upon His bodily resurrection from the dead, said he would not believe unless he could see and touch the very wounds he knew Jesus had suffered upon the cross:
Joh 20:24 But Thomas, one of the twelve, called Didymus, was not with them when Jesus came.
Joh 20:25 The other disciples therefore said unto him, We have seen the Lord. But he said unto them, Except I shall see in his hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the print of the nails, and thrust my hand into his side, I will not believe.
Our Lord Jesus Christ eight days later gave Thomas the very opportunity to verify His risen identity as the very same Jesus He had known before the cross:
Joh 20:26 And after eight days again his disciples were within, and Thomas with them: then came Jesus, the doors being shut, and stood in the midst, and said, Peace be unto you.
Joh 20:27 Then saith he to Thomas, Reach hither thy finger, and behold my hands; and reach hither thy hand, and thrust it into my side: and be not faithless, but believing.
Joh 20:28 And Thomas answered and said unto him, My Lord and my God.
“6) he was hungry and asked for food, meaning the time in the tomb had made him ravenous
He was probably unconscious or in coma when they took his body down from the tree, but to onlookers, it looked as if he had died. He did not! Allah saved him!”
Jesus asked if the disciples had any food available, and they did. Jesus ate the food before their very eyes, demonstrating He was not an immaterial ghost or phantom as they first supposed. He ate before them to demonstrate the fact that “a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have” (Luke 24:38-43).
Your supposition that Jesus merely appeared to have died to the onlookers but actually was unconscious or in a coma is a central element of the “swoon theory,” which is amply disproved by the historical fact that Pilate himself was surprised that Jesus had expired so soon. You will recall that Pilate sent for the centurion who had been observing these events to confirm by the centurion’s testimony that Jesus was in fact physically dead. When Pilate received that confirmation, he released the body of Jesus to Joseph of Arimathea who desired to give Jesus a proper burial (Mark 15:42-47):
Mark 15:42-47
42 And now when the even was come, because it was the preparation, that is, the day before the sabbath,
43 Joseph of Arimathaea, an honourable counsellor, which also waited for the kingdom of God, came, and went in boldly unto Pilate, and craved the body of Jesus.
44 And Pilate marvelled if he were already dead: and calling unto him the centurion, he asked him whether he had been any while dead.
45 And when he knew it of the centurion, he gave the body to Joseph.
46 And he bought fine linen, and took him down, and wrapped him in the linen, and laid him in a sepulchre which was hewn out of a rock, and rolled a stone unto the door of the sepulchre.
47 And Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Joses beheld where he was laid.
King James Version
All the documentary evidence is on my side, not yours, refuting your mistaken notion that “There are strong evidences that he did not die!”
