Back in 2017, Islamic apologist Zakir Hussain had a debate with James White on the topic of the crucifixion of Jesus. When one watches it without any background knowledge on the issue, it appears as though Zakir won. However, when one looks at the sources Zakir used and thinks critically about his arguments, one discovers that he is actually not as impressive as Muslims think he is. Here is what Muslims said in the comment section on the video of that debate:
(I apologize for the bad quality of the photos. I wasn't able to get screenshots.)
As you can see, Muslims are eating up all of Zakir's arguments without using their intellect and thinking critically. In this article, I will go through every one of Hussain's arguments and give a refutation using some of the sources quoted in the debate. Not many people have given a response to Zakir's arguments, but in this article I hope to do that.
Argument #1: "Psalm 116 disproves the Crucifixion due to its connection with Hebrews 5:7"
Zakir's main argument was based off some passages from the Psalms in the Hebrew Bible. He argued that a specific group of Psalms were seen as Messianic and they speak about someone coming close to death but getting saved by God at the last minute. This is what he said:
"Raymond Brown in his monumental book entitled 'Death of the Messiah' on page 228 mentions that Hebrews 5:7 was an early Christian hymn with its wording clearly based on Psalm 116. Amazingly, when one goes to Psalm 116, one realizes it is about someone who praises God for answering his prayers and delivering him from a close encounter with death. Also, the name of the Messiah is foreshadowed in the Hebrew text. Muslims are not inconsistent. The same way we maintain that the name of the seal of the prophets is foreshadowed in Song of Songs 5:16 is the same way we see the name of the Messiah foreshadowed in the Psalms in numerous places. Any Jewish follower of Jesus who believed that the prayer of Jesus was accepted as Hebrews 5:7 states would easily connect it to Psalm 116 and would clearly see the name of the Messiah alluded to in the Psalms. The name 'yeshua' is in the Hebrew text of Psalm 116 as well as multiple times in Psalm 91, a text that Jesus affirmed was about him in the temptation."
Zakir then goes to read portions of these passages.
What I want to focus on is when Zakir cites Raymond Brown to support his argument. Hussain needs Hebrews 5:7 to be connected to Psalm 116 in the sense that it supports the Muslim view in order for his argument to work. Let's look at the source he cites:
"A study of the Greek vocabulary in this passage shows that the author of Hebrews did not make up the passage from wording that he found in any of the canonical Gospels, nor did any evangelist make up his PN account of Jesus: prayer(s) from this passage. . . Where, then, did the author of Hebrews get the description given in 5:7-9 of Jesus' struggle with death and his being perfected. . . Hebrews, then, may be copying the phrasing of an already composed work, like a hymn. . . Several have pointed to the first verse of Psalm 116 (Greek Pss. 114-1 5); and Strobel "Psalmengrundlage" has gone further to show that most of the
vocabulary of Heb 5:7 may be found scattered throughout the psalm: in the days of (116:2); prayer (116:1); tears (116:8); save (116:6); from death (116:8); heard (116:1). (Note that some of this vocabulary is from clauses that scholars who are mentioned above judge as later additions to the hymn. Either that theory is wrong, or the person making the additions imitated the psalm upon which the hymn drew.) At the end of 116 (vv. 17-19) the psalmist thanks God for listening to his prayer and tears and for saving his life from the snares of death; and he promises to offer a sacrifice of praise in the
courts of the house of the Lord in Jerusalem-a not inappropriate preparation for the Jesus of Hebrews who, having been saved from death, went as a Melchizedek-like priest to minister in the heavenly sanctuary (Heb 5: 10;8: 1-2; 9: 12). Thus one can make a plausible case that the description in Hebrews of Jesus' prayer to be saved from death (which was heard) came from an early Christian hymn of praise, constructed of a mosaic of psalm motifs." (Raymond Brown, The Death of The Messiah, pg. 228-229)
So it is true that Psalms 116 may be where Hebrews 5:7 derived its literary structure from. I can grant that. Does that refute the crucifixion? Not at all. The question we need to ask is what does "saved from death" refer to in this context. That is our primary question because we can assume based off of what Raymond Brown said that Psalms 116 is underlying the narrative of Hebrews 5:7. One might think at first glance that this is "game over" for Christianity. Far from it. It all depends on what "saved from death" means. James argued that it refers to Jesus' resurrection, whereas Zakir responded by saying that it is the "plain reading of the text" that supports his interpretation of the text. However, when one goes to Zakir's source he cited (i.e. Raymond Brown), one notices how awful this argument truly is:
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| This is page 230 of Raymond Brown's book The Death of the Messiah only two pages after the one Zakir cited (pg. 228) |
The very source that Zakir cited refutes his entire argument! He conveniently left this part out in order to save his argument. I don't know if he was deliberately lying to everyone or not. Essentially, Zakir shot himself in the foot by appealing to a source that destroys his whole argument's foundation. Raymond Brown himself agrees that "saved from death" refers to Jesus' resurrection. You can download the full pdf of Brown's book here and see the evidence for yourself.
I now want to focus a bit more specifically on the issue of Hebrews 5:7. Zakir seemed to imply that early Christians interpreted this passage the same way Muslims would (i.e. Jesus was saved from crucifixion). However, the Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture refutes this:
"Jesus’ prayers were granted, but how were his prayers granted if he had demanded to be delivered from death? To be sure, he was not saved. He wanted to fulfill in himself the will of the Father. And for this reason it was evident that he was the Son of God, because in behalf of human creatures he exposed his own soul for the rest of the soul of the one who sent him, and his obedience was made evident by the hands of those who crucified him. If, therefore, the crucifiers testify that his prayers were granted, if it is so, I say, he certainly wanted to die, and he demanded that the will of his Father was fulfilled. He offered supplications with loud claims to the one who was able to save him from death; he who was about to die did not ask for delivery from death nor demand to be resurrected after his death because this had been promised to him earlier, but he prayed for his crucifiers lest they might die in him. And his prayers were granted, because the door was opened so that his crucifiers might live in him. And the one who did these things, that is, the one who abased himself to such humility and suffering for his murderers is the Son of God; and from this it was evident that he was satisfied in those sufferings which he endured. In fact, some of his murderers were converted, and through their repentance they were the heralds of his resurrection." (Ephrem the Syrian, Commentary on the Epistle to the Hebrews, as cited by Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture: Hebrews, pg. 71)
Plus the author of Hebrews himself refutes Zakir's interpretation. Hebrews clearly affirms Jesus' death by crucifixion in places such as Hebrews 2:9 as well as Christ's resurrection in Hebrew 13.
Zakir also mentioned that the name 'Yeshua' is in the text. This is true:
Unfortunately, this argument will blow up in Zakir's face when we apply this to Psalms 118:14 where the same Hebrew word appears:
Yahweh (יהוה) has become יֵשׁוּעַ (Yeshua) according to Zakir Hussain. Lets all give him the thumps up for proving that Jesus is יהוה in human flesh!
The last point I would like to mention is when Zakir implied that John 12:27 is in contradiction with the narrative of Jesus' prayers to be saved from death in the garden of Gethsemane. This is what John 12:27 says:
“Now is my soul troubled. And what shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour’? But for this purpose I have come to this hour." (John 12:27)
Some translations say "No, it was for this reason I came to this hour." Thus Muslims try to force the contradiction in this verse. However, the word "No" is not in the Greek text at all. The word that is translated "No" is the Greek conjunction "ἀλλὰ". This is actually translated as "But" in almost every instance it occurs in the Greek New Testament. The only time I could find where it is translated as "No" is in Luke 23:15 - "ἀλλ οὐδὲ Ἡρῴδης" ('No, not even Herod...'). Another thing to note is that John 12:27 affirms the crucifixion. Jesus says in this verse "for this very purpose I have come to this hour". Jesus came to "this hour" in order to give up his life for his people (Mark 10:45)
Argument #2: "Simon of Cyrene" was crucified instead of Jesus
This was perhaps the worst argument made by Zakir in the whole debate, with all due respect to him (Zakir). However, I still would like to address it. Basically, he was saying that due to the way the pronouns work in Mark 15, it could be interpreted to mean Simon of Cyrene was crucified rather than Jesus. Here is the passage that Zakir based his argument off of:
"A certain man from Cyrene, Simon, the father of Alexander and Rufus, was passing by on his way in from the country, and they forced him to carry the cross. They brought him to the place called Golgotha (which means “the place of the skull”). Then they offered him wine mixed with myrrh, but he did not take it. And they crucified him. Dividing up his clothes, they cast lots to see what each would get." (Mark 15:21-24)
However, this puts Zakir in a hard position. Earlier in the debate, he made the argument about the Sign of Jonah in Matthew 12. He said it was a prophecy about Jesus and tried to force a parallel there. But think with me for a second. These are some of Zakir's points that contradict each other here:
- The Sign of Jonah is a prophecy about Jesus and disproves his crucifixion because Jonah was alive just like Jesus was alive.
-Simon of Cyrene was the person who was on the cross
The Sign of Jonah says Jesus will be buried in the "heart of the earth". In the Markan crucifixion narrative, the person on the cross is buried. But according to Zakir Hussain, Simon of Cyrene was the person on the cross. If we grant that, then Simon also must have been the person who was buried in the tomb. Yet Zakir still tries to make an argument about the Sign of Jonah. He is contradicting himself right here.
One must also realize that the gospel of Mark didn't have any sort of verse divisions when it was originally written. Therefore, it was usually read as one whole chapter. When we look at it that way, it wreaks havoc on Zakir's argument. Other verses in Mark 15 don't make any sense if it was Simon of Cyrene on the cross. Here is an example:
"And at the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, 'Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?' which means, 'My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?' ” (Mark 15:34)
Now, when one confronts Zakir with this, he might want to say that this wasn't in the original Greek and that the translators simply added it in. However, the name Jesus does appear in the original Greek of 15:34:
According to Islam, Jesus was saved by Allah at the last minute. While Simon of Cyrene was on the cross, Jesus was with Allah in paradise according to Islam. Why would Jesus be saying that God had forsaken him if he was just saved by Allah? Once again, we can see how faulty Zakir's argument is.
This also wouldn't make any sense in light of verse 39, where the Roman soldier calls the man on the cross 'the Son of God', which wreaks further havoc on Zakir Hussain because it proves that Jesus' (remember, Simon of Cyrene was changed to look like Jesus) contemporaries identified him as the Son of God.
Zakir tried to defend his theory by citing the book A Companion to Second Century Christian Heretics and claimed that Basilides (the Gnostic heretic who came up with the idea that Simon of Cyrene was crucified instead of Jesus) may have gotten his theory based off of Mark 15. However, Zakir fails to mention that the source specifies the parts of Mark 15 that Basilides was allegedly reading:
When one reads Mark 15:20-24 without context and forgets to look at 15:34 and does eisegesis, then you might be able to come up with this Basilidean theory. Zakir's source says that he was reading vv. 20-24, not the whole chapter in context. Zakir, on the other hand, said: "Dr. White tried to appeal to the Greek and I knew he'd do that. This is the academic book called A Companion to Second Century Christian Heretics, regarding Basilides, they say on page 22 'Basilides may have said Simon [was crucified] based off on Mark 15's ambiguity. Do you think Basilides was reading it in English or Greek?" (he said these words at 1:35:13 in the video)
Zakir misquoted the book he cited at forgot (conveniently) to mention that it specifies that it was only vv. 20-24 that he (Basilides) was reading. Basilides clearly never read Mark 15 in the complete context because if he did he would know that verse 34 explicitly states that the person on the cross was Jesus, not Basilides.
Argument #3 - "Luke 13:33 is a false prophecy"
In his opening statement and rebuttals, Zakir made the argument that Luke 13:33 was a false prophecy because according to Christianity, Jesus died on Calvary (which is outside Jerusalem), and Jesus was also a prophet. Zakir says these beliefs don't hold up in light of what Luke 13:33 says:
"Nevertheless, I must go on my way today and tomorrow and the day following, for it cannot be that a prophet should perish away from Jerusalem.’" (Luke 13:33 ESV)
Zakir commits a false dichotomy by insisting that "either Jesus was a false prophet or the person who died on the cross was not Jesus. Christians have a choice."
Jesus was not speaking literally here in the sense that Zakir tries to force and twist the verse into. Rather Jesus was pointing out the sad irony that Jerusalem has a reputation for killing its prophets. Wayne Grudem in the ESV Study Bible points out some helpful details:
"I must go. Jesus was committed to finishing his mission. that a prophet should perish away from Jerusalem. Jesus did not mean that no prophet had ever died outside of Jerusalem (see 2 Chron. 24:20–22; Jer. 26:20–23). Rather, he was using irony. Jerusalem, the center of Jewish religion and worship, was more dangerous to a true prophet of God than any threats from Herod in Galilee." (Wayne Grudem, ESV Study Bible, pg. 2151, italics mine)
Zakir's interpretation ignores this completely, thus further illustrating his faulty methodology. This is an example of eisegesis.
Argument #4 - "Jesus drinking wine on the cross is in contradiction with him at the Last Supper promising not to drink wine again until he is in the kingdom of God" (Mark 14:25, Luke 22:18)
When Jesus makes this promise, it is in the context of Him celebrating Passover with His disciples. This is a seen as a prototype of a divine fellowship that will take place in heaven (Psalm 23:5, Exodus 24:9-11, Revelation 19:9-10). Jesus isn't speaking literally, in the sense of when wine will next touch his lips. This is seen as a future celebration of the great feast in heaven. When Jesus drinks sour wine on the cross, it in reality doesn't have to do much at all with Jesus' promise here at the Last Supper. The sour wine is not intended as a meal.
At the Passover feast, there were usually about four cups containing wine used as part of the Seder ceremony. Jesus drank from the first two cups, but did not drink from the third one. Jesus was speaking symbolically of the wine of the third cup as being associated with his blood poured out on the cross. Jesus had no need to redeem himself. This is why the narratives in the Synoptic gospels say clearly that Jesus gave the third cup to his disciples (Matthew 26:27-28, Mark 14:23-24, Luke 22:17). The wine is a symbol of the atoning blood of Christ.
Zakir quotes C.K. Barrett's commentary on John in order to support his attempt to force a contradiction. However, C.K. Barrett, is not always correct in what he says. For example, he argued that in John 14:26, "τὸ πνεῦμα τὸ ἃγιον" (...the Holy Spirit...) wasn't part of the original text, but that another reading was, even though every critical edition of the New Testament agrees that τὸ πνεῦμα τὸ ἃγιον was the original reading. Not to mention that it is supported by early Johannine manuscripts such as p66 as well as Codex Sinaiticus. To be clear, my position is not that C.K. Barrett can never be cited.
Argument #5 - "Matthew 12:40 is a false prophecy because Jesus' time in the tomb doesn't add up to three days and three nights"
"Three days and three" nights is a common Hebrew idiom. As James White said that in Jewish thought, part of a day can be understood as a full day. This is true and can be demonstrated by looking at Jewish and Rabbinic literature. Here are some examples including the Old Testament:
As we can see, this was common terminology to Jews. Modern Semitic scholarship has confirmed as well:
"A short time in the morning of the seventh day is counted as the seventh day; circumcision takes place on the eighth day, even though, of the first day only a few minutes after the birth of the child, these being counted as one day.” (The Jewish Encyclopaedia, Vol. 4, p. 475.)
Zakir responded to this by insisting that even if we use this model of a time factor, you only get two days because Jesus is said to have been buried after sunset. However, this is contrary to what Mark 15 was saying. If we look at the Markan crucifixion narrative, we can see a couple time indicators and plot out a short "timeline".
- (15:25) "And it was the third hour when they crucified him"
- (15:33) "And when the sixth hour had come" Most commentators say that the "sixth hour" is noon.
- (15:33) "there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour", the ESV Study Bible has a footnote saying that this is referring to 3:00 PM (pg. 2088) This is the same time when Jesus cried out "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?". (v. 34)
- (15:42-43) "And when evening had come, since it was the day of Preparation, that is, the day before the Sabbath, Joseph of Arimathea, a respected member of the council, who was also himself looking for the kingdom of God, took courage and went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus." Raymond Brown's (Zakir quoted him so he can't cherry pick what he likes) notes are useful here which prove Jesus was most likely put into the tomb before sunset:
"According to the last time specification given (15:34,37) Jesus had screamed out at the ninth hour (3 P.M.) and then expired. Jewish law would have the crucified taken down and buried before sunset, which would mark the beginning of another day. By narrative flow, then, the setting is somewhere between 3 PM and sunset. In itself opsia does not convey precise information about relationship to the opening of the next day. Mark's "already" and the following "since" are the only hints that Joseph was conscious of temporal pressure and must have hastened. The actions now about to be described (going before Pilate who would call in the centurion, buying a linen cloth, taking the body down, tying it up, and putting it in a burial place) would have taken not much less than two hours. Consequently, by logic rather than by simple translation, interpreters assume that Mark has in mind late afternoon, no earlier than ca. 4:30 PM. What should be emphasized is that opsia fits into a series of time references that Mark has been giving us in relation to the death of Jesus (15:1,25,33,34: early,3rd,6th,9th hours), so that sequence more than precision is intended. Indeed, if we had chosen to begin the discussion of the PN with the Last Supper, the "evening" reference in 14:17 that began the supper account could form an inclusion with the "evening" here to mark the beginning and the end. The second Markan time indication, "since it was preparation day", besides showing that it was still Friday and that the next day had not begun, makes more intelligible why Mark went to the trouble of telling us that it was already evening." (Raymond Brown, The Death of the Messiah: Volume 2, pg. 1211-1212)
As we can see, the "three days and three nights" are not a false prophecy. When one reads the Markan passion narrative carefully and does the research, it really is quite simple.
Argument #6 - "Jesus' predictions of his death and resurrection could not have happened because Peter and the disciples were confused at the tomb as to what was happening. Didn't they remember that Jesus predicted his death?"
Jesus predicting his death, in my opinion, is one of the biggest dilemmas for Muslims to handle. It is hard to reconcile these passages with the two major Islamic beliefs: 1) Jesus was a true prophet, and 2) Jesus never died and resurrected. When I heard that a Muslim apologist had finally responded to this, I was excited. But when I listened to Zakir's answer, I was honestly pretty disappointed. Basically, Zakir thinks that because the resurrection narratives show Peter being confused as to why the women where claiming Jesus had risen, this wouldn't make any sense if Jesus had really predicted his death. It is a good question, I'll admit. But it is by no means unanswerable.
There are a few good reasons as to why the disciples didn't expect Jesus to be raised from the dead. One of them is due to the fact that since the Jews had a concept of an eschatological resurrection (teḥiyyat ha-metim) that would take place at the end of time, they obviously would not have expected Jesus to be raised to life when it was not in an eschatological time period. We can see from Jewish sources their concept of resurrection. In 2 Maccabees 7:9,14, as well as 14:44, we can see ideas of bodily resurrection all throughout them. N.T. Wright in his book The Resurrection of the Son of God goes into greater details about the concept of resurrection in Second Temple Judaism (515 BC-70 AD), on pg. 146-206). This belief is not only in Jewish sources. It is even found in Ibn Ishaq 137, where Salih bin Ibrahim had a Jewish neighbor who spoke about "resurrection of the dead". The point being here is that since Jews (i.e. the disciples who were all Jewish) had a concept of resurrection that would happen at the end of time, it would make sense as to why they weren't expecting Jesus to rise. This in no way negates Jesus predictions of his death.
A second reason why the disciples may not have expected the resurrection in light of the Passion predictions is because of their frequent confusion of Jesus' predictions. We can see this throughout the gospels:
“Listen carefully to what I am about to tell you: The Son of Man is going to be delivered into the hands of men.” But they did not understand what this meant. It was hidden from them, so that they did not grasp it, and they were afraid to ask him about it. (Luke 9:44-45)
"As they were coming down the mountain, Jesus gave them orders not to tell anyone what they had seen until the Son of Man had risen from the dead. They kept the matter to themselves, discussing what 'rising from the dead' meant." (Mark 9:9-10)
"When the voice had spoken, they found that Jesus was alone. The disciples kept this to themselves and did not tell anyone at that time what they had seen." (Luke 9:36)
A final plausible reason would be the disciples' frequent lack of faith. In the New Testament, we read over and over about this:
"If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith?" (Matthew 6:30)
“Unless you people see signs and wonders,” Jesus told him, “you will never believe.” (John 4:48)
"If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today, and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, how much more will he clothe you—you of little faith!" (Luke 12:28)
"He replied, 'You of little faith, why are you so afraid?'” (Matthew 8:26)
"He said to his disciples, 'Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith?' ” (Mark 4:40)
For more reasons for the historicity of Jesus' predictions of his death and resurrection, see Mike Licona, The Resurrection of Jesus: A New Historiographical Approach, pg. 284-302
Conclusion
It is a shame that Muslims don't fact-check their apologists more often and see if they are really telling them the truth. When one examines carefully the sources that Zakir Hussain utilized, it is easy to see how inconsistent he is. His opening statement was filled with scholars who refute him themselves (i.e. Raymond Brown). In the future, I hope to see him do a debate with a cross examination section, where he defends his arguments under some strong questioning. So far, nothing like that has happened yet. The closest I have seen is him debating random people at Speaker's Corner while he is hanging around with Hamza (Darren) Myatt doing proselytizing with the other Speaker's Corner apologists for Islam.
From now on, we should be more careful in our citing of sources, as well as more consistent in our methodology. When one does that, we can better discuss these issues. In the end, we see how the evidence for Jesus' crucifixion is overwhelming.
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