By Babatunde Jose 

That they said (in boast), “We killed Christ Jesus the son of Mary, the Apostle of Allah”; –But they killed him not, nor crucified him, but so it was made to appear to them, and those who differ therein are full of doubts, with no (certain) knowledge, but only conjecture to follow,

for of a surety they killed him not: (Quran 2:157)

The life of Jesus is shroud in mystery, inscrutability, impenetrability and inexplicability; right from his birth to the age of 12 after which he disappeared and the Bible had no explanation for his absence, only to suddenly reappear into history at 30, ministry for 3 years and summarily crucified for a crime he did not commit. The end of the life of Jesus on earth is also involved in ambiguity as his birth. It is not profitable to discuss the many doubts and conjectures among the early Christian sects and among Muslim theologians. The Gospels record Jesus age 12 in the temple, then age 30 at the River Jordan. Where was he in the interim? Ancient Buddhist manuscripts say Jesus left Palestine and travelled to India, Nepal, Ladakh and Tibet.

According to ancient Tibetan manuscripts, Jesus secretly withdrew from the home at age thirteen. Young “Issa”, as he is known in Asia, joined a merchant caravan. Destination: India and the Himalayas.

Buddhist scholars documented “The Life of Saint Issa” two thousand years ago.  Nicolas Notovitch discovered the long lost document in 1887 at the Himis monastery in Ladakh. Swami Abhedananda published a Bengali translation of the Himis manuscript in 1929. Nicholas Roerich quoted the same verses in a 1929 travel diary of his Asian expedition. And in 1939, a lama at Himis presented a set of parchments to Elisabeth Caspari with the words: “These books say your Jesus was here!”

Today there are many books on the controversial stories of these travellers on the most important events that shaped the life and work of Jesus Christ. They are indeed historical breakthrough that will shake the foundations of modern Christendom! However, these are stories for another day. As we approach Easter, our concern is with the death and resurrection of Jesus the Christ.

There is no doubt Jesus had a premonition of his end, hence, the last supper and the words the gospel writers had put in his mouth; his going into the Garden of Gethsemane and his fervent prayer to God to let him overcome his travails: Matthew 26:36-46. The Orthodox Christian Churches make it a cardinal point of their doctrine that his life was taken on the Cross, that he died and was buried, that on the third day he rose in the body with his wounds intact, and walked about and conversed, and ate with his disciples, and was afterwards taken up bodily to heaven. For a detailed expose of this theme, see Philip Schaff, HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH: Apostolic Christianity A.D. 1–100.

This subject matter of death, resurrection and ascension is necessary for the theological doctrine of blood sacrifice and vicarious atonement for sins, which is rejected by Islam.

The greatest question the concept of blood atonement begs is: After Jesus carried away our sins, are we sinless today? Have we been cleansed? Is man better for all that has been done on his behalf by the Christ? Judging from the iniquities and sin man has committed since the time of Christ, it might be tempting to conclude that Jesus sacrificed his blood in vain for an unrepentant and adulterous generation.

Some of the early Christian sects did not believe that Christ was killed on the Cross. The Basilidans believed that someone else was substituted for him. The Docetae held that Christ never had a real physical or natural body, but only an apparent or phantom body, and that his Crucifixion was only apparent, not real. The Marcionite Gospel (about A.D. 138) denied that Jesus was born, and merely said that he appeared in human form. The Gospel of St. Barnabas supported the theory of substitution on the Cross; and this tally with the Islamic point of view. The Quranic teaching is that Christ was not crucified nor killed by the Jews:

Nay, Allah raised him up unto Himself; and Allah is Exalted in Power, Wise; (Quran 2:158)

There is difference of opinion as to the exact interpretation of this verse. The words are: The Jews did not kill Jesus, but Allah raised him up (rafa’u) to Himself. One school holds that Jesus did not die the usual human death, but still lives in the body in heaven, which is the generally accepted Muslim view. Yussuf Ali.

In the Reader: Cambridge Companion to Jesus, the Editor, Markus Bockmuehl, in his introduction wrote: “Two thousand years have come and gone, but still his remains the unfinished story that refuses to go away. Jesus of Nazareth, a Jew from rural first-century Galilee, is without doubt the most famous and most influential human being who ever walked the face of the earth. The global fact is that the adherents of Jesus are more widespread and more numerous, and make up a greater part of the world’s population, than at any time in history.”

“The followers of Jesus live in every country of the globe. They read and speak of him in a thousand tongues. For many non-believers, too, indeed to the majority of the earth’s population, Jesus is a household name, whose ‘brand recognition’ still far outstrips that of McDonald’s, Microsoft or MTV.”

Epistemologically, Jesus and his effects in our world are inextricably intertwined: the man of Nazareth cannot be understood in isolation from the footprint he has left on our collective and individual understanding, feeling and knowing. And yet, there is an obvious and equally ‘historical’ sense in which he is clearly not just ‘a man like any other man’.”

Barka Juma’at and happy weekend