Crucifixion Historicity
CATHEDRAL NEWSLETTER - 16 January 2025
Friends in Christ, on Monday as I left the Cathedral to go home, my exit was impeded by a Muslim man praying right outside our office door on the landing. I had to excuse myself and step over and around him. But something, presumably the Holy Spirit, then prompted me to pause and pray for his salvation for as long as it took him to finish his set prayers.
I then explained that he should not pray so as to block a doorway. It could impede people in an emergency. He did apologise but his excuse was to say it was a house of God. I said, it was a Christian house of God. He then claimed we all worship the same God.
However as we talked a little further, it emerged that we disagreed over whether Jesus died on the cross. He asserted that this was most definitely not the case, based on the Qu’ran 4:157, which includes these words (translated into English) which he quoted at me:
And they did not kill him, nor did they crucify him; but [another] was made to resemble him to them.
Occasionally you hear a variation from people claiming Jesus only ‘swooned’ and revived in the tomb and exited, thus explaining the empty tomb in a way that removes the need for resurrection. It’s not a theory generally pursued much today, although it was raised by Joe Rogan in the podcast I mentioned last Sunday. But more often these days, the claim Jesus never died on the cross is asserted strongly by Muslim conversation partners as above.
In this case, I simply apply the law of non-contradiction. That is, Jesus was either crucified, as the Bible says, or he was not, as the Qu’ran says. (There is a third possibility: that both claims are wrong, for example, if he never existed, which I have previously addressed.)
How do we assess such a claim? One might simply accept the claim of a particular source of revelation and authority. So for other reasons, you may have come to trust (i.e. exercise faith) in the claims of the Bible or the Qu’ran on this matter.
However in the public arena, I proceed by making an historical argument. And historical judgments are based on the balance of probabilities, rather than certainties. Since we have no direct access to the past, that is one way we can proceed.
On that basis, let me summarise why Jesus’ execution by crucifixion under Pontius Pilate can be considered such a secure fact of ancient history.
MULTIPLE ATTESTATION
Firstly, Jesus’ death by crucifixion is multiply attested, by a fair number of ancient sources, both Christian and non-Christian alike.
In regards to Christian sources which mention his death, I list from the first century AD material from all four canonical Gospels, Acts, Paul’s Epistles, all within the Bible; then Ignatius’ Epistles (dating around 110 AD, for example, Letter to the Symrnaeans 1-2). Many, if not all, of these sources are independent.
Here’s one example from Mark (usually dated as the earliest Gospel). The narrative in Mark 15:44-45 makes it clear Jesus really was dead.
The history books record that men who were crucified sometimes took two or three days to die. A more rapid death was unusual. So in this case, the governor Pilate gets the executioner to confirm the death certificate! The observation that Roman centurions were professional soldiers and didn’t make mistakes is well taken. So satisfied, Pilate permitted the body of Jesus to be buried.
By the way, there was a very low probability of surviving execution by crucifixion. Apparently there is only one extant account (in Josephus) of one person surviving crucifixion out of the hundreds reported in ancient literature. (And that case was only when excellent medical care was immediately provided by the Romans, and even so, only one out of three who were so rescued actually survived!)
CRITERION OF EMBARRASSMENT
Mark also stresses that it was women who witnessed the events: death, burial and empty tomb. And each time, verbs of seeing are emphasized. And each time, some of them are named. Mark 15:40 says that when Jesus has just died, at least three women are there. Two of these same women witnessed the burial (Mark 15:47). And in Mark 16:1, all three women are again mentioned as arriving back at the tomb on resurrection Sunday. The appeal to these women’s role as eyewitnesses couldn’t be clearer.
And notice how Mark reports only two of the three are at the burial? Presumably because that’s how it was. Mark wasn’t going to exaggerate. This precision shows a real concern for accuracy.
And presumably these people are mentioned by name in the Gospels, because they were well-known in early church times for their testimony to these crucial events in the origins of Christianity. It’s an accepted method of ancient historiography: the appeal to witnesses, many of whom could be cross-examined. It would have been hard to write, if there were not real people around to back up these claims.
NON-CHRISTIAN SOURCES
In regards to non-Christian sources, I note Josephus (Antiquities 18:3, writing c. 93 AD, citing Jesus’ name, the method of crucifixion, and the governor who ordered it, Pilate), Tacitus (Annals 15:44, writing c. 115 AD, mentioning execution under Pilate, but not the method), and a bit later, Lucian (b. c.125 AD in The Death of Peregrine). These all pre-date the Qu’ran by a several centuries.
By contrast, it is an interesting exercise to ask sceptics for any extent examples of ancient non-Christian sources to the contrary, dating in the first or second century, and insisting that Jesus did not die by Roman execution, for example, suggesting that it only looked like Jesus was crucified!
EARLY DATING
These reports, especially those in the New Testament, are early. Paul mentions the death of Jesus no later than 55 AD in 1 Corinthians and earlier in Galatians. And he reports he preached the same message to the Corinthians when he was with them in 50-51 AD, which is within 17-21 years of the time Jesus is said to have died (depending on whether you go for 30 or 33 AD). And the oral tradition formula he reports preaching in 1 Cor 15:3ff is widely assessed by scholars to have been composed very early, reflecting what was taught by the Jerusalem apostles, very likely within a few months of the events being reported.
By contrast, the Qu’ran dates no earlier than 610 A.D. when Muslims indicate that the angel Gabriel first appeared and began to speak to Muhammad. And so its testimony that Jesus did not really die on the cross dates more than 5 centuries later than the earliest written claims of his crucifixion. There is a massive gap back to the events it claims to report.
In my longer article on this topic, I quote a fairly long list of modern historians, from a variety of perspectives, Christian, Jewish, atheist, liberal, scpetical. This summary from Roman Catholic scholar, RE Brown (The Death of the Messiah, 1994) is a fair representative of the strong consensus!
Most scholars accept the uniform testimony of the Gospels that Jesus died during the Judean prefecture of Pontius Pilate. (p. 1373)
I have used several standard aspects of reputable historical method (e.g. the criteria of multiple attestation, of embarrassment, of antiquity).
And the assessment that Jesus’ death by crucifixion is factual is shared by a very wide consensus of scholarship, including many unsympathetic to biblical Christianity.
And so I am confident to say the Bible is absolutely correct and truthful when it says Jesus died by crucifixion and therefore (although I am sorry to put it so bluntly) the Qu’ran is wrong when it asserts Jesus did not die this way.
Interestingly, when I asked the Muslim man praying at our door whether he had any historical sources earlier than the Qu'ran that I should read indicating that Jesus did not die on the cross, he suddenly claimed not to be a religious scholar, and changed the topic. So I indicated I preferred evidence that was closer to the time of Jesus, gave him my business card and asked him to email so I could send him a link to my article on the topic. So far he has not followed up, but please pray that God's Spirit might trouble his mind sufficiently that he might look into this matter further.
Warmly in Christ,
Sandy Grant
Dean of Sydney