Fighting on Different Hills: Licona and Ally on the Resurrection of Jesus - Part 1

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Fighting on Different Hills: Licona and Ally on the Resurrection of Jesus - Part 1

August 13, 2025

In 2004, Islamic scholar Dr. Shabir Ally and Dr. Mike Licona met at Regent University to debate the physical resurrection of Jesus. Both cases, a lively Q&A between the scholars and an audience Q&A make up this week’s episode. Dr. Licona presents a positive case for Jesus’ resurrection based on three nearly universally agreed-upon facts about Jesus’ death and resurrection taken from the earliest historical sources. Dr. Ally presents the negative, citing Muslim beliefs about God’s forgiveness and the testimony of the Quran on Jesus’ crucifixion, as well as varying gospel testimony, which he believes changed over time to support the idea that Jesus died on the cross and was later bodily raised. Ally claims that, like Mel Gibson, the producer of the movie The Last Temptation of Christ, the gospel writers looked at what they thought the Old Testament writings said would happen to Jesus and then wrote what they thought should have occurred based upon this. Licona, conceding gospel difficulties for the sake of the discussion only, returns to his earlier evidence, which Ally fails to address. Dr. Licona remarks that they are fighting on two different hills and tensions rise over the presentation of source evidence.

Transcript

In today's episode, tensions rise between Dr. Michael Licona and Islamic scholar Dr. Shabir Ali. As they debate and discuss the resurrection of Jesus, Licona argues that Jesus did rise bodily from the dead and provides three facts that support his claim based on agreed-upon historical evidence. Dr. Ali, on the other hand, disagrees.

Citing discrepancies in the gospel reports of Jesus's death and resurrection and a lack of evidence to show that on the cross, Jesus died, that it was Jesus on the cross and that reported appearances of Jesus were physical and not spiritual. You are listening to the Risen Jesus podcast. Thank you for joining us.

You've got the formal introduction and background in your program and our debate format is really semi-formal and I think our attitude will be a little bit relaxed as well. Both Mr. Ali and Mr. Licona like being referred to as Mike and Shabir. Okay, my name is Gordon.

Tell a person beside you what your name is. Okay, so they're not sitting with strangers. Just tell them what your name is.

Good. All right. Again, we have a semi-formal structure and you'll see the outline there in your program.

We'll plan to follow that. And from time to time, especially when we get to the crossfire, I may get involved a little bit in just trying to help keep things on track. Both of the speakers have given me permission to do that.

And let me tell you about a strange experience for me last night. As I, for the first time, walked through Norfolk International Airport with a Muslim imam by my side. Uh-huh.

That tension was amazing. Just as we were, I've never experienced anything like that from the inside of walking through the airport. And I'd like to encourage you to try to move beyond some of the stereotypes that we have created as Christians, as non-Muslims.

And I'm sure that you Muslim guests among us will not have to worry about that and dealing with that. But Mr. Ali here kind of represents the typical error by thinking some ways, don't you? Yeah, except he was born in South America, okay? His parents were born in South America in Guyana, okay? He's been in Canada for the last 25 years. And he's not of Arabic extraction.

He's from great-great-great-great grandparents, India. Okay? So, imagine that. He's born in South America.

There are millions and hundreds of millions of Muslims all over the world. And we've kind of fixated and been dramatically fixated by some incidents like 9-11. Let me encourage you to move way beyond that.

And to meet Shabir as a person, listen to him as a person, his points of view. And Mike, and see these guys, they have very real, distinct, important differences, okay? And those differences are a big part of what tonight is all about, very important. But they also have some things in common in regard to humanity and all of that.

And I'd encourage you to look at these folks as people and persons first. And then listen to what they have to say, not only with your head, but also with your heart. Listen with your heart.

As an instructor, I know that the best mode of learning is relaxed attentiveness, okay? Relaxed attentiveness. And if this is a first kind of experience for you and these kind of Muslim-Christian dialogues, there may be a little bit of tension. And I want me to encourage you just to leave that aside.

And as you start listening to these gentlemen, I think you'll get beyond it quite quickly and quite easily. But let me encourage you, even from the beginning, to do that. Now, because we are a Christian university, allow me to begin with a word of prayer.

And then we will enter into the opening statement, which you have in the order here of your program. Mike Lacono will be giving that. And then an opening statement by Mr. Shabir Ali.

Father God, you are good, and we are grateful. Your goodness is expressed in so many ways, and we are grateful. We thank you for the creation of this Earth.

We thank you for the people and the diversity of people that you have placed on this planet, our home Earth. But Father, as we consider your truths and your revelation, as we consider faith and obedience to you, I ask that your Spirit will draw us into truth. We'll lead us.

We'll illumine our hearts, our minds, and our spirits. And may we listen, listen with all of who we are, not only to each other, but to you. For this I pray in Christ's powerful name.

Mike, I guess you're up first. Good evening. It's great to be with you this evening.

Can you all hear me? Mike, one? Hello. There we go. Good evening.

It's great to be with you, and I'd like to thank Regent University for hosting tonight's debate. I would also like to thank Mr. Shabir Ali and his organization for inviting me to debate him. Mr. Ali is certainly a very experienced debater, and is perhaps certainly one of the most articulate ambassadors of Islam today.

So, in light of this, I think we're in for an enjoyable time this evening as we explore the evidence for an answer to the question, did Jesus rise from the dead? Now, for me, this is one of the most interesting as well as important topics for discussion. And let me explain why. About 20 years ago, I was in graduate school specializing in the study of New Testament Greek and planning on going into the ministry.

And at that time, I believed that I had a very intimate relationship with God. But I started to wonder, is this really the truth? Or was I self-deluded? So, I decided to take a step back from my position of confidence and to ask some of the tough questions. And when I did that, I was just praying, and God had lead me.

And I started to look at all the evidence for Christianity, and considering the evidence for the other religions, and also considering the arguments for atheism. And after several years, the personal conclusion that I came to was that what I initially believed had been revealed to me by God's Holy Spirit, had now been confirmed from, and by philosophy, science, and history. Namely, that God exists, and that he has actually revealed himself to mankind in Jesus Christ, and that Christianity is true.

The evidence for Jesus' resurrection at that point was strongly compelling to me and largely led me to that decision. Now, the reason Jesus' resurrection is so important is because the truth of Christianity hinges on this event. Jesus' atoning death and resurrection have been bedrock doctrines for Christianity since its inception.

Therefore, if Jesus did not rise from the dead, the foundation collapses, and Christianity is false. The Apostle Paul himself wrote, if Christ has not been raised, your faith is worthless. On the other hand, if Jesus did rise from the dead, then it seems that there's good reason for believing that Christianity is true, and that gives us something we're all going to have to think about.

You see, I don't think it's sufficient to say, well, the evidence is good for resurrection, but I just can't believe it because my worldview doesn't allow it. Well, if that's a position you find yourself in, it may be time to find another worldview. That's why the seasonings debate is much, much more than an academic discussion.

The eternal destiny of our souls may very well hinge on what we do with Jesus and his resurrection. So where do we begin? Historical Jesus' research. The eminent historical Jesus scholar, John Meyer, explains his follows.

He says, suppose we have a Jew, an agnostic, and a Christian. This is not a joke. A Jew, an agnostic and a Christian, all honest historians, all well acquainted with first century religious movements and we lock them up at Harvard Divinity School Library and we tell them you can't come out until you have hammered out a consensus statement on what we can know about Jesus based on historical research only and apart from any faith or theological considerations.

That resulting document would portray what scholars refer to as the historical Jesus. Now the real Jesus, the Jesus who walked the shores of the Sea of Galilee may have been much, much more than the Jesus portrayed in that document, but he's nothing less. So obviously tonight, I am not going to be presented an argument that says the Bible says it, I believe it, and that settles it for me.

It's more rather like what Tom Cruise said in the movie A Few Good Men. It doesn't matter what I believe. It only matters what I can prove.

Now with this in mind, what I want to do this evening is I want to present three facts for you that are strongly evidenced and are granted by a large majority if not virtually every scholar who studies the subject, even the rather skeptical ones. Fact number one is Jesus' death by crucifixion. That Jesus was crucified and died through the process is granted by virtually 100% of all scholars who studied the subject today.

His crucifixion is death by crucifixion is a test that not only a Christian sources, but a non-Christian sources as well. Now crucifixion and the tortures that preceded it was an unspeakably cruel process. Many of us have watched Mel Gibson's movie, The Passion, and we've witnessed the brutal process of scourging used by the Romans in antiquity.

Now this is also described in other ancient writings. For example, Josephus reports of a man who was filleted to the bone with whips. In a second century document called the Martyrdom of Polycarp, he mentions how the Roman whip could expose both veins and arteries.

Now the Jewish authorities had a wall and it was that when scourging a person you could not give them more than 39 lashes. But the Romans had no such law. They could scourge a person with as many lashes as they wanted.

In fact they could scourge a person to death. Now once this brutal process, this torture was done, then the victim was forced to carry a cross beam out and he was led outside the city gates. When he was then they took nails and they impaled him to a cross or to a trade.

And then the victim was left there, exposed to the elements of the scavengers such as birds, dogs and annoying insects. It was a horrible, humiliating and painful death. In fact the word excruciating comes out of the cross.

In the first century there was an author named Seneca and he described a person on the cross as appearing sickly deformed and swollen with ugly welts on shoulders and chest. Likewise Josephus in the first century referred to crucifixion as the most wretched of deaths. Now in light of this process the majority of the medical community today has come with a near unanimous decision that Jesus died as a result of being crucified.

Now scholars or I should say medical professionals differ on the actual cause of crucifixion. Nevertheless they are still very much convinced that Jesus certainly died as a result. So let's sum up our evidence for Jesus death by crucifixion.

First it's multiple tested by even non-Christian sources. Second our understanding of crucifixion and the tortures that preceded it, militate against the person surviving the cross. And third is we look and we find that there's the universal medical professional medical opinion that Jesus died as a result.

So we can see that the evidence both historical and medical indicates that Jesus was crucified and that this process killed him. Fact number two the empty tomb. An impressive 75% of all scholars who studied the subject acknowledged this.

Now tonight I want to give you three arguments for the empty tomb. The first is the Jerusalem factor. Now Jesus was publicly executed then buried and then his resurrection first proclaimed all in Jerusalem.

Now it would have been impossible for Christianity to get off the ground in that city if the body had still been in the tomb. While the Jewish or Roman authorities would have had to do is go to the tomb, exhum the body, tie his heels together and drag him through Main Street in Jerusalem and the hoax was over. But that did not happen.

In fact that leads us to our second argument for the empty tomb and that is what the enemies of Jesus were saying. They were saying that the disciples stole the body. Now I have a nine year old son.

And let's suppose that he goes in tomorrow or Monday and he tells his fourth grade teacher that the dog ate his homework. Now that indicates to the teacher he doesn't have it to turn in. And likewise when the disciples or the Jewish leadership was saying that the disciples stole the body this indicates that they couldn't produce it.

It leads us to our third argument for the empty tomb. And that is the concept of resurrection. Whoop.

Wow. Okay. That doesn't like me.

Oh well. Let me go back. The concept of resurrection and antiquity was that it was a bodily event.

And sorry about this. I missed it. Anyway, we'll move on.

The concept of bodily resurrection in antiquity was that it was a bodily event. It actually happened to the body. Now here's what happens.

NT Wright, he's a very eminent New Testament historian and he just did a book last year called The Resurrection of the Son of God. And in this 800 page volume Wright devoted the bulk of the work to saying to analyzing what was going on in antiquity in terms of what scholars or what the people in antiquity believe happened once a person died. Now here's the deal.

He found that the pagans, what they believed was that when a person died they would shed the body and become a disembodied spirit. On the other hand, Jews had a couple of different views. There was a group of people who believed that there was no life after death.

They were called the Sadducees. And when a person died, in their opinion, that's it. They just ceased to exist.

There was no heaven for them. And so they were sad, you see. Now on the other hand, most Jews believed in a bodily resurrection.

In fact, the leading group was the Pharisees and they believed that there was life after death. And they were fair, you see. Now what they believed was the body that died was the body that was buried and then on the day of resurrection that body would be raised and transformed into an immortal body.

Now Jews and Christians aren't the only ones that believe in bodily resurrection as bodily. In fact, we can show up. It's for the time of Jesus during and slightly after it always always met the body.

But the Islamic view of resurrection is that it's bodily as well. In the Quran, Surah 75 verses 1 through 4, it speaks of Allah when on the final day of resurrection, on the final day, the judgment day, that final day, God will reassemble bones and restore a person down to their very fingertips. So there's a common thread throughout Judaism, Christianity and Islam that resurrection always involved the body.

Now it would seem then that the disciples are saying that Jesus was resurrected. That involved the body and of course it implies the empty tomb. Now in light of that, we've seen some good evidence for the empty tomb this evening.

William Wand of Oxford University sums it up this way. He says, all the strictly historical evidence we have is in favor of the empty tomb. And those scholars who rejected all to recognize that they do so on some other grounds than that of scientific history.

So where does this leave us? Number one, we've seen that Jesus was crucified and that the process killed him. Number two, we've seen the empty tomb. But wait, there's more.

Fact number three, on a number of occasions we see that the disciples of Jesus believed that he had been resurrected and had appeared to them. And not only was this disciples, but it was the foes of Jesus as well. Let's deal with the first group and that would have to do with the friends of Jesus, his disciples.

This is testified by eyewitnesses who knew the disciples, namely Paul and Clement of Rome. These again, they knew the disciples and they were saying that the disciples were claiming that Jesus had risen from the dead. In addition, there is early oral tradition referred to as kurigma.

It comes from the Greek word kurigma, which means the official and formal preaching of the disciples. And when we look at this, we find that the kurigma refers to resurrection. In fact, let me give you the primary example.

It's found in 1 Corinthians 15 verses 3 through 7 in what scholars have identified as a creed. Now in this creed, it says that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures and that he was buried and that he was raised on the third day according to the scriptures. Then he appeared to Peter, then to the twelve.

After that, he appeared to more than 500 at one time, most of whom are still alive, but some have died. Then he appeared to James, then to all of the apostles. And then after that, Paul says he adds his own name to that list.

I wish I had time to get into how scholars and why they date this to within five years of the crucifixion and trace it to the disciples themselves. I don't have time, but if Mr. Ali would like to challenge this finding of the majority of scholars, I'd be happy to deal with it in the remainder of our debate this evening. In the meantime, we can conclude that the disciples were claiming that Jesus had been resurrected and had appeared to them.

But we can go further. No less than seven sources in antiquity attest that they were willing to suffer and die for those convictions that Jesus had been resurrected. Now, I'm not saying, and I want to be clear on this, I am not saying that this proves that Jesus rose, because certainly people of other religious beliefs and even non-religious beliefs like communism, they are willing to suffer and die for their convictions.

However, we wouldn't accuse people who suffer and die for their convictions for dying for a known lie. And thus, we can show that the disciples were not only claiming that Jesus had been risen, but they really believed it. Liers make poor martyrs.

That brings us to our second group of people, and that is the foes of Jesus. I want to look at right now one of the major foes, and that is Paul. Now, the record states that Paul was a persecutor of the church.

He was arresting, beating, consenting to the deaths of Christians, and then he converted to one, because he claimed that he experienced a post-resurrection appearance of Jesus, and it totally transformed his life. This testimony is documented not only by Paul himself, but confirmed by Acts, and also further corroborated by a very early oral tradition that said he who persecuted the church now promotes the fate he once sought to destroy. So we have both early eyewitness and multiple testimonies to this fact.

Folks, this is the kind of data historians drew over. We can go further because not only did Paul claim this, we can say he really believed it because seven sources of test that he was willing to suffer and die for those convictions. We go to another foe, and that would be James.

Now, this is going to be the only time this evening that as evidence for the resurrection, I'm going to appeal to the gospels, because I like data which is much earlier, and that way we can avoid discussions over the trustworthiness of the gospels or the inerrancy of the New Testament. I want to go with facts that I can prove, and that's why I'm focusing on that. Nevertheless, historians still believe the testimony, the embarrassing testimony of the gospels, that changed the brother of Jesus as well as all of Jesus' brothers were non-believers.

Up through the time of his crucifixion, and shortly afterward, we find James as a leader in the Church of Jerusalem. And then we find that three non-biblical sources, even a non-Christian source, says that James was willing to die and did for his beliefs that Jesus had been resurrected. What accounts for this transformation? Most scholars answer that by saying it's the appearance to James, and that it's reported in that early creed in 1 Corinthians 15, I mentioned a moment ago.

Paula Fredericks in the Boston University comments, I know in their own terms what they saw was the raised Jesus. That's what they say, and then all the historic evidence afterwards, we have a test to the fact that that's what they saw. I'm not saying that they did see the raised Jesus, I wasn't there, I don't know what they saw, but I do know that as an historian, that they must have seen something.

Let's go ahead and sum up our three facts then this evening. Number one, Jesus' death by crucifixion, number two, the empty tomb, and number three, the appearances to both friend and foe. At least that's what they believed had happened, that Jesus had been resurrected and had appeared to them.

Let's go ahead and build a case now based on those three facts. We've seen that these facts are strongly evidenced historically and that they're granted by an impressive majority, if not virtually every scholar who studies the subject, including skeptical ones. We've also seen that Jesus' resurrection, we can see easily explains all of these facts and without any strain.

So in the absence of any plausible alternate theories to account for these facts, Jesus' resurrection can be accepted with confidence that it was an event that occurred. So now what Mr. Ali has to do this evening is he either has to show that the facts that I've presented, which are again strongly evidenced in a test that are granted by virtually all scholars that they're mistaken in this. Or he has to show that the logic of the argument that I have up here is flawed.

Or he has to build a case of his own for what occurred that is at least as plausible, if not more so than Jesus' resurrection. Until and unless he does this, I think the conclusion is sound. Jesus' resurrection is the best explanation for the historical data and should be regarded as a fact that occurred in history.

Thank you. Thank you, Mike. Shavir.

Yes. You now have 20 minutes. Indeed.

You're welcome. Right here. Find.

Hi. Thank you very much for giving me the opportunity to speak to you. I want to thank you, Gordon, for giving me this chance.

Mike, thank you very much. And thanks very much to my friend David. David was sitting in the audience for a loving help today.

Mike, not on? Oh, yes. I should use that. Oh.

Allow me to do that. Just like in Mel Gibson's movie, more goes on in the back room than you would be aware of. Yes, I was just thanking David for his loving help in assisting with my education.

He took me to see the passion of the Christ today. And I did learn a lot from watching that film. Now, the task before me is to explain where I stand on this as a Muslim.

And I want to begin there to explain why I have not found the evidence for the resurrection to be persuasive. And I think the first point I want to make is that I am a Muslim. And Gordon, you got it right in referring back to 9-eleven.

In fact, after 9-eleven, I became more aware not only that I'm a Muslim, but I'm a Canadian. How Canadian I am. Because I saw my religion being hijacked on 9-eleven and then persons like myself had to come up and pick up the pieces and to explain who we are as Canadians and as Muslims.

And not only did I realize that I have a job to do as a Muslim, but also I realized that I have a job to do as a Canadian and as a Canadian Muslim. And that job involves building bridges of understanding with other people. And it is in the spirit that I went out to see the passion of the price today because I do want to understand more of the faith of my neighbours.

But the fact that I'm a Muslim is what most is relevant to our discussion here tonight. Because that fact, of course, may be a bias that precludes me from appreciating the evidence for the resurrection of Jesus. I want to first acknowledge that and then try to put it aside and look clearly at the fact after acknowledging my own bias.

Now, the fact that I'm a Muslim has trained me to not appreciate the need for the cross, because in Islam we are taught that God forgives and he forgives without demanding the price of sin to be paid, except in certain circumstances. There are occasions in Islamic law where one might perform a sacrifice or one might give charity as a compensation for certain wrongs done. Or if one has wronged someone else, one is required in addition to seeking forgiveness from God to also repair the harm done to others, to the best of one's ability in doing that.

But never in Islam do we understand that someone else might possibly conceivably pay for our sins. In fact, we would find it to be objectionable if such a thing were to happen. At least on the human scale, I think all human beings subscribe to the idea that it will be wrong to let an innocent person pay for the sins of the guilty.

Or if such a thing were done, if someone else paid, then there would be no forgiveness. Forgiveness means really that no one pays for your sins. Now, having been brought up as a Muslim on these beliefs, it became not easy for me to appreciate the significance of the cross that I see is placed on it in Christianity.

Second, in Islam, and Mike has alluded to this in his presentation, there is a different conception of what happened regarding the crucifixion of Jesus. The crucial verse is in chapter 4, verse number 157, where it says, I'm giving you the original language, just like Mel Gibson would. If I'm to translate that, it means they killed him not, nor did they crucify him, but so it was made to appear to them.

And those who differed concerning the matter are without concerning him. For a certainty, they killed him not. But God raised him to himself, and God is mighty and wise.

Now, this verse has been interpreted by classical commentators on the Quran as meaning that someone else was transformed, made to look like Jesus, and that someone else was crucified instead of Jesus, so that whereas everything appeared as though Jesus was being crucified, in fact, it were not so. Now, I said classical interpreters of the Quran, and that may give the impression that these are the original and earliest interpreters, but they were not. In fact, Neil Robinson, a very able scholar from Leeds University in the United Kingdom, in his book, Christ in Islam and Christianity, has traced the origins of these interpretations and found them to be originating from Iraq in the middle of the second century.

There is no reported saying from the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, that gives the details of this. Just the stark narrative, the way I've translated it from the Quranic text. Some classical commentators, on the other hand, struggle with the variety of interpretive detail that was given by various commentators, and the best summation of that I have found to be the Tafsiro Kabir, the big Tafsir, the big commentary by the pride of the faith of Razi.

Now, Razi, after summarizing all of the various interpretations that have been offered by Muslim scholars on this, in the end he concludes by saying these interpretations are contradictory one to another, and in the end only God knows what happens. And I think that is the best Muslim position regarding what happened at the crucifixion. Now, let's work to retrace our steps and find out where all these varied interpretations came from, where did Muslim scholars get the idea that someone else was made to look like Jesus and crucified instead.

This came from a variety of sources, including informers from people of other faiths in the area. There were some early Christian groups, not the earliest from the second century of Christianity forward. There were Gnostics who believed that someone else was made to look like Jesus.

In the Mel Gibson movie we saw a Simon of Cyrenee carrying the cross along with Jesus, and some had believed that Simon was in fact transformed to look like Jesus and was crucified instead of Jesus. And so this kind of information fed into the Muslim commentaries, but now when these commentaries are examined carefully, most modern scholars will tend today in Islam to think that something else is the reality behind the Quranic narrative. Yusuf Ali, for example, in his translation of the Qur'an has it such that even though it appeared to the onlookers that Jesus had died on the cross, in fact he had not died.

Further to that, we have Muhammad Assad in the message of the Qur'an. Again a translation and commentary on the Qur'an, well rooted in the traditional toughseers, saying also that the stories which grew up within Muslim tradition to say that someone else was put on the cross instead of Jesus is not necessarily what the Qur'an implies. And in fact he found and he exposed a very difficult problem with that interpretation.

What he said was that the passage, how much more time do I have? Any indication? 12 minutes. I don't want to spend all my time here on Qur'anic interpretation and not get to the biblical facts. I want to be sure of that, so be careful.

What he said was that these stories that grew up among Muslim commentators ignored a grammatical problem that was there in the way they have interpreted the verse. And this grammatical problem was pointed out by an ancient classical scholar of Qur'anic toughseer, a scholar by the name of Azamakshari in his toughseer known as Al-Kashaf, the unveiling. And what Zamakshari said was that in fact when you look at the passage it says he was made to appear to them, but it could also mean it was made to appear to them.

Because in the Arabic reference the reference who using a personal pronoun there could refer to him or to it. And he said that if in fact this verse is referring to the crucified person, that the crucified person was made to look like Jesus, that crucified person should have previously been mentioned so that the reference could be attached to him. See if you're telling a story and you said he said we want to know who is this he, but if this person was just mentioned a little while ago we know this is referring to that person.

If the person was not mentioned you have to introduce him by name. And so Zamakshari pointed out that this could not be a reference to the crucified individual, but the classical commentators who are basing their commentary on the idea that this referred to Jesus. But Zamakshari pointed out that in fact it couldn't refer to Jesus because it was not Jesus who was made to resemble someone else, according to their explanation.

It was someone else who was made to refer to Jesus. And Zamakshari proposed instead, even though he himself did not reach the logical conclusion of his proposal, he proposed that the verse actually means it was made so to appear to them. As in the Arabic expression hoye la la home, it seemed so to them.

So now many modern commentators would follow that interpretation and say that what the verse is saying is that even though it appeared to them that they had crucified Jesus, in fact they had not done so. Now we can develop that further if we have more time and I will deal with this probably in response to your questions or to Mike's probing. But the point is just simply this now, in the final summation, this verse of the Quran does not necessitate the belief that someone else was put on the cross instead of Jesus.

But it please open the possibility that Jesus did not actually die on the cross. And this, in a nutshell, is the Muslim belief that even though the enemies thought they had Jesus, thought they had him killed, they were not successful in doing that. Now if you've seen the Melagapson movie, you'd be sure the guy died.

You'd wonder if he didn't die before actually reaching the cross with all of the torches he has gone through. But when we have time, I will take apart and deconstruct that movie and show you where Mel has in fact improved upon the facts in order to get that conclusion firmly fixed in our minds. But now so far I have said that because of my Muslim background, I am not predisposed to find the evidence for the resurrection persuasive.

But that does not mean however, that if the evidence is put before me that I should deny it simply because I'm a Muslim. I think myself to be a reasonable individual, I study, I read these books, and I try to find out what Christian scholars have said about the resurrection, what proof they have offered. I've listened to Mike carefully, and his arguments are not new.

I found them in the writings of other apologists, some of whom I've debated with, such as Dr. William Lynn Craig. And I have studied in detail some of the commentaries on the biblical passages, especially the ones which are more relevant. And I'd like to tell you why I do not find the evidence so persuasive.

I think two reasons. One is that I couldn't find it persuasive that Jesus actually reappeared to his disciples in a physical bodily form. And second, I could not be persuaded, given the Gospel evidence alone, that Jesus in fact actually died on the cross.

Now, usually if a person lived 2,000 years ago, and he's no longer around, we assume that he is dead. But if someone comes and tells us that a certain person who was executed 2,000 years ago was actually seen alive a few days later, we'll be asking two questions as reasonable individuals. First, we'll be asking, not necessarily in that order, but we'll be asking, are you sure you really saw him? And the second thing we'll be asking is, I have to check my mic.

Are you sure he was really dead? So let's look at the two in order. Are you sure he was really dead? Now, Mel Gibson is quite imaginative, and what he has done is that he has actually improved upon the information that is given in the Gospels. And so he has imagined the worst possible tortures that a person could go through in crucifixion, and he has put them all into the movie till it really becomes too much.

Now, it doesn't have to be that way. John Heyman's film, which has been widely distributed by Christian groups a couple of years ago, and of which I had the pleasure of watching the Egyptian Arabic version, so I can learn a little bit of Arabic along the way as well. I found to be more true to the Gospel narratives and more reasonably historical than Mel Gibson's movie.

And the tortures which Jesus has endured in John Heyman's film are nothing close to what he endures in Mel Gibson's. And nobody died watching John Heyman. Now, as scholars who have combed the narratives in the Gospels, have tried to understand what caused Jesus's death.

As Mike told us, even though everyone would agree that Jesus died on the cross as historians, they couldn't agree as doctors as to what caused his death. And this is amply elaborated in the book entitled The Death of an Messiah by Raymond Brown, a two-volume book, a magnum opus. A book highly recommended by even conservative Christians.

In fact, Raymond Brown is a noted scholar. I mentioned Dr. William Lane Craig, who will be no stranger to you folks. And Dr. Craig refers to Raymond Brown as one of the greatest New Testament scholars of our present time.

Bruce Metzger said that if you can only one book on the New Testament, let it be Raymond Brown's introduction to the New Testament. An extraordinary work. Now, Raymond Brown wonders what could have caused the death of our Lord? He said, because crucifixion does not usually cause the piercing of any vital organ.

So what caused his death? Now, Mel Gibson goes out of his way to try and show us the worst imaginable tortures of Jesus. Till he has the Roman authorities having Jesus on the cross and turning the cross over so they can bend the nails that have protruded after going through as a particular of the cross. And that is unreal.

Because if anyone has actually used hammers and nails, you know that once a nail has gone into wood like that, it's pretty firm. You can hand ten men on a nail like that. You've got these something like eight-inch long nails going through a wood that is about six inches thick, maybe even thicker than that.

There's no need to bend it on the other side to make sure it holds. But if some has them turn Jesus over with the cross and slam face down, you wonder, wouldn't he die just from that? And then when they're done with that, they have to bring him back up the way they need him. So slam the other way and you wonder if his back has not broken every single bone of it.

But if we take just the narratives the way they are given in the text, one would not be sure that Jesus actually died on the cross. The second point that I wanted to make about this is that in reading the narratives, I could not be persuaded that they actually saw Jesus back from the dead. Now, of course, when you read the narratives today, you see that there are many, including the gospel according to John, in which there are at least three.

But when you comb back past through these narratives and you look at the evolution of the text over time, you realize that the later gospels are improving the story for you. So in Mark's gospel, you do not have any actual narrative showing that Jesus reappeared to his disciples, except in an ending which is known today to not be originally from Mark. It's a later edition into his gospel.

And you go to the later gospels of Matthew and Luke and you can see that right before your eyes, the stories are being improved. And that tells us that over time, as the stories were told and retold, they took on certain improvements to become what they are now. So now, when we think about what happened, we can be quite convinced that Jesus died because we're reading them all together, putting them all together in our minds.

When we read the gospels about the reappearance of Jesus from the dead, we are reading all of them together and thinking that all of these details are true. But what scholars have noted is that, in fact, these stories have evolved over time. So if you have, for example, in Luke's gospel, Jesus appearing to his twelve disciples, or rather 11, because the one had betrayed him on the day of Easter, John has the dramatic reappearance of Jesus a week later so that he can appear to Thomas, and the doubting Thomas can verify that Jesus is here for real.

But in order for John to do that, he had to make Thomas absent on the first occasion, so that whereas Luke has him appearing to all of his disciples, the 11, John says Thomas was absent. This leaves the opening for Jesus to come back a week later and appear to the doubting Thomas. So when we read the stories, we see then that the gospel writers themselves have improved the stories, and if we are to peel back the improvements and study the text historically, we could not be convinced that Jesus actually died on the cross and also reappeared to his disciples in a physical bodily form.

Those historians who agree that he died are agreeing what historians would normally agree with. If somebody lived 2,000 years ago and is no longer with us, then he is dead, according to the rules of history. But if someone claims that he reappeared to his disciples in a physical bodily form such as to lead to the conclusion that he resurrected from the dead, then we should be asking two questions, was he really dead.

Examining the narratives does not persuade me that he was actually dead on the cross, and second, examining the narratives, peeling back the later layers of improvements does not persuade me that he actually reappeared to his disciples in a physical bodily form. Now, Muslims and Christians can still believe that Jesus was raised up by God, but that of course is something that we cannot prove, and even though I believe that, it is not something I am here to demonstrate and prove. Thank you very much.

As we mentioned earlier, we're not doing a formal debate, and we're going to enter into something that's somewhat creative in regards to debate. We're picking up something from television. Crossfire is a title anyway, and our next 15 minutes will involve Mike asking questions of Shabir, and then we'll exchange that and go back and forth a couple of times, and I think you'll find this interesting.

Hey, Don Shabir. Oh, very good, Mike. It's really great to meet you today.

Let's see, you started off, let me go with what you said last here about the developing legend within the Gospels. You spent some time talking about how the traditions of the resurrection, the resurrection narratives had developed embellishments over time, and there were some legendary additions and so forth, and so therefore we shouldn't believe the accounts at all. In my opening speech tonight, I was pretty careful to discuss evidence that predates the Gospels by decades.

In fact, stuff which goes back to the original disciples themselves. I think the Gospels are reliable, but let's just say for a moment, in fact, I'd be happy for the remainder of our debate this evening to just concede for the sake of argument. The Gospels are filled with errors and contradictions, we'll say.

How does that impact the evidence that I provided, which again comes decades earlier? It seems to me that what happened is you're assaulting this hill and you're throwing grenades and we're seeing explosions, but I'm on this other hill and I'm saying, what's he doing over there? My army's on this hill, and how would you respond to that? Well, the evidence which you have cited showing that there was an early acknowledgement that Jesus reappeared to his disciples. It's not something that historians deny or that what I've presented denies. You have evidence that there was a blossoming Christian faith.

People believe that Jesus is alive. Muslims believe that Jesus is alive. But the belief that someone is alive and in heaven with God does not necessitate his bodily resurrection.

In the Gospels themselves, you have it that Jesus proclaims that Abraham and Moses are alive. They're alive with God, but the belief that they're alive does not necessitate their bodily resurrection. So it is quite possible that the disciples of Jesus witnessing the crucifixion event later on came to the conclusion, for whatever reason, that God raised Jesus from the dead.

And that conclusion does not necessitate finding his tomb empty and knowing that he physically bodily resurrected from the dead. It is just a faith expression of the closeness that Jesus had with God and the conviction of his disciples, that God did not leave Jesus alone to suffer in this horrible way. I think I'd have to take issue with that, because when we go back to the earliest tradition, like, for example, the creeds, there's several of them peppered throughout the New Testament.

And we talked about 1 Corinthians 15 that he died and that he was raised and that he appeared. In Romans 1, verses 3 and 4, a majority of scholars acknowledge that we have an actual early formula or oral tradition there. It says that he was declared the Son of God with power by the spirit of holiness through his resurrection from the dead.

So in the various early traditions, in fact, that would predate Paul, that predates everything, those references. There are, I counted, three creeds themselves within the New Testament that would predate Paul and go back to within just a few years. In fact, James D.G. Dunn says that the Creed in 1 Corinthians 15 dates to within months of the crucifixion.

So we have very early and goes back to the disciples. Paul himself mentions resurrection or rise from the dead on 30 occasions. So we have a total of 33 references in the New Testament, very early, predating the gospels and a number of those predating even Paul that talks about Jesus being dead and raised or resurrection.

And of course, as I mentioned, the concept of resurrection, the body that was buried is the same body that's raised and was transformed into an immortal body. And the testimony of the disciples is that's the body that appeared to them. Well, I think you have to be aware that the creeds that you're referring to have been identified by scholars combing the New Testament, looking at the writings of Paul.

They look at Romans, as you've mentioned. They look at 1 Corinthians. You didn't mention Philippians, but it's there in the back of your mind as another one of the Chorigmas.

That is, that scholars have identified as early statements of faith. But notice that Paul does not say where he got these from. And Paul, in adding his own self, adding himself to the list of people to whom Jesus appeared, is adding to that list a person to whom Jesus appeared somehow spiritually.

Because in the Acts of the Apostles, where the appearance of Paul is described, it is not a physical bodily appearance, but it is a blind flashing light from out of heaven. So once Paul has added that, I think your case becomes weak here, and it becomes more like the case of those who say that the disciples of Jesus must have seen an appearance of Jesus. And Muslims should be willing to grant the God in order to solace the companions of Jesus, allowed them to see a spiritual vision of Jesus that would persuade them that Jesus is alive with God so that they can go forward and preach their Christian faith despite the fact that Jesus died this horrible death, which would mark him off in the eyes of people as a condemned criminal, a blasphemer and a false messiah.

So none of the evidence you have cited actually proves that Jesus physically bodily rose from the dead. I appreciate you saying that. Actually, I don't think that what Paul saw on the road to Damascus was a spiritual vision or appearance like you're saying.

But I'm glad you grant Acts because if you want to do that, then we'll go to Acts 13 where Paul is preaching as well. And there he very distinctly and precisely says bodily resurrection. He contrasts King David with Jesus and he says, David died, was buried, his body decayed, Jesus died and his body did not decay, rather God raised it up, and of that we are all eyewitnesses.

So in doing so, he's certainly contrasting what happened to David with Jesus and saying Jesus' body did not decay, he raised it up and where I witnessed this to this. Now if you mention Paul, we have to also say even if we do take that appearance in Acts 9, 22 and 26, where he sees him on the road to Damascus and it's the bright light, this is a post ascension appearance. So that could certainly account by the difference.

The disciples saw him right after he had been raised from the dead, but Paul is seen after he ascended to heaven. And Paul elsewhere in his own writings is very clear about bodily resurrection. For example in Romans 8 and 11, he says, the spirit who raised Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies.

So certainly referring to bodily resurrection there. And then you have Colossians 2, 9 where it says, in Christ, all the fullness of deity dwells in bodily form. And he's using the present tense and of course this is after post ascension.

So Paul's view is still that Jesus is in a body. There's numerous references like this. So I would just have to disagree with you that he's referring to a vision or spirit here.

And then in terms of where he got the information from in Galatians 1, verse 18 and 19, he says that three years after his conversion, which would have been about five years after the crucifixion, he goes up to Jerusalem to meet with the disciples. And he meets with Peter. He says, I met with Peter and the Greek word used there is hysteresae, from which we get the English word history.

And the word would mean that he went up and he did this historical investigation. He was asking for history of Jesus from Peter. And many scholars believe that this is at the point where Paul received this creed in 1 Corinthians 15 and all this because he was asking, a history of Jesus and that's where he would have received the information from.

Well, I think you've said it yourself, Mike, that there is an assumption there that Paul got this from Peter. But Paul doesn't actually say that. And we have to assume that Paul got it from there.

Moreover, where Paul speaks about body of resurrection elsewhere, that does not necessarily mean that Jesus' resurrection was of the same sort. You cannot say that because things generally happen, in a particular way, every specific case happens as the general case. Moreover, once Paul has been added to that list of appearances, you cannot preclude the fact that others receive a similar appearance to the one that Paul received, which is something like a blinding light, something like a spiritual and non-physical appearance, not Jesus appearing in a bodily form, but a blinding light in heaven.

And when you put us all together, you realize that what Mel Gibson, for example, has shown in the movie that Jesus is sitting there in the tomb, and we get a chance to see in the tomb, that nobody else has seen 2,000 years ago, this is exactly the kind of evidence we would have liked to have, and we don't have. So finally, we should say that the evidence for the resurrection of Jesus from the dead is lacking. And if Muslims and Christians believe that God miraculously raised Jesus into heaven in a mysterious way that we do not know how, and that we do not need evidence for, but we accept on faith, this would be fine.

But you have made it necessary, and other apologists, like yourselves, have made it necessary to prove that Jesus actually rose from the dead. And this is where you are in the difficulty. I don't see this as a difficulty, because the disciples themselves made it an issue.

They claimed resurrection. That's what their claim was. See, they didn't make this the issue that they must prove it.

It was Paul who made this the issue, because it was Paul who said, I've decided to know nothing else but Christ and him crucified. It was Paul who said, and you quoted him, that if the Christ is not raised from the dead, then the Christian faith is vain. But why should it be so? Why couldn't the suffering of Jesus, as of the passion, be enough to base one's faith in Jesus? Why couldn't all of his miraculous teachings, his healing, all of his beautiful teachings, which are found in the Sermon on the Mount? Why couldn't that be the basis for Christian faith? Why does he have to resurrect from the dead? Okay, now we're going to shift questions here, which is part of the intention.

To have these parties just unlock and step back a little bit, take a breath. And now we'll shift the initiative at this point to Shabbir. He can pick up and carry on or move on to other topics.

Yes. Mike, in your presentation, you presented what you called three irrefutable facts. And there are facts you think that have been agreed upon by everyone.

One is the death of Jesus on the cross, two is the empty tomb, and third is his reappearance to his disciples. Now, if you trace the logic of where I was actually dealing with my questions, I've already started the question period for you. Now, where you have actually put yourself in the difficulty here is with first acknowledging that it is historically certain that Jesus died on the cross.

Now, the circumstances of his death would mark him off as a blasphemer. As a Muslim, I believe in Jesus, but I believe in him by virtue of my belief in the Quran. I've said that in my opening presentation.

But what Christian apologists are asking me to do is to leave my Quran aside, to say that this is not historical. I must go with the information that is there in the gospels based on which the historical conclusion is that he certainly died on the Pontius Pilate. Now, if he certainly died on the Pontius Pilate as a blasphemer, as a curse of God, as Paul would put it, and that is certain.

And if the evidence for his resurrection from the dead is not certain, but you can say 75% of scholars agree on that, and of course you mean evangelical conservative scholars. And if you say scholars who study it, you're not referring to scholars who have just dismissed it and do not bother even to look at it. Now, because of course of other conclusions that have already been firmly fixed, they have conclusions that they know about the history of the gospels, the way they have been written and so on.

So now, back to yourself into that corner, you have to provide irrefutable evidence that he also resurrected from the dead. And that is the evidence which you do not have, because you have gospels which have been evolved over time. The earliest gospel according to Mark does not have the ending which we would love to see Jesus reappearing to his disciples.

Somebody had to fix that in later on. You have the later improvements that I've spoken about. How do you respond to that? Well, as far as the irrefutable evidence, that is a tall burden of proof right there.

I don't think we can do that for anything. I mean, we can't prove anything with 100% certainty. I can't prove that I'm 42 years old.

For all I can prove, I mean, I was created, everything here was created five minutes ago, and we were given memories of events that never took place and food in our stomachs from meals we never ate. I can't prove that that's not the case. What we have to look for is high probability and what is the most plausible explanation for the data.

And from what you've given me, you haven't attacked any of the evidence at all. Regarding the gospels, you bring up the gospels again. But the evidence I provided is decades prior to the gospels.

And so attacking the gospels, again, for the sake of our debate this evening, I'm more than happy to grant that the gospels are totally unreliable and filled with errors and contradictions. I don't believe that, of course. But for the sake of our debate, I'm willing to, because I want to get our debate focused on the evidence, which is the eye presented, which is decades before the gospels.

And so you questioned the death of Jesus, you said. And what basis do you do that again? Okay. It's the destiny.

I'm sorry. You're in control. First I should remind you, Mike, that I did not say that none of the gospel is reliable.

But I did say that the gospels have evolved over time. And once we peel back the layers of evolution in the gospels, we realize that in the earliest chatter, there is not sufficient evidence to conclude that Jesus both died on the cross and resurrected from the dead, or that he reappeared to his disciples. Once we acknowledge that, and you have the earliest chatter of evidence, which is prior to the gospels, which you mentioned, and we see that in the earliest chatter, which you mentioned, there is no firm declarative statement that Jesus physically bodily raised from the dead, then we can see the evolution even starting with those declarations, from the declarations of Paul, that Jesus reappeared to his disciples, and that this forms the bedrock of Paul's emerging faith.

Naturally, the gospels, which would be written later by followers of Paul, would want to prove that Jesus actually physically rose from the dead, and they have taken the story further. And so we see one stage in Mark. We see a further development in Matthew, a further development in Luke, and then the final development in John's gospel, and a further development in Mel Gibson's movie.

So there are improvements along the line. What Mel Gibson has done is nothing new. This is what the gospel writers have done, too.

They have told the story the way they thought it should have been told. And Mel Gibson has done that. We need to see Jesus sitting there.

We need to see Jim Carrezzo back alive without any stripes in his body, just the one little nail wound in his palm, where it shouldn't be anyhow. So Gibson has told it the way it ought to be told. Each gospel writer in his own time has told it the way he thought it ought to be told.

Given this evolution of the gospels, peeling back to the earliest shadow of tradition, can you be satisfied in the earliest shadow of tradition? Jesus actually died on the cross, and that he reappeared to his disciples in the physical bodily form. Offer evidence of that. I have.

It's the early oral traditions, and Paul himself. You mentioned the gospels. But again, I'd like to express I'm willing to grant you the gospels, have legend, and errors, and all kinds of problems for tonight's debate.

But I'm still on this other hill, and I'm waiting for you over here. Now, you had mentioned about... No, I'm not going to ask you a question. I'm sorry.

You said that... You can't just wait and let him ask the question. Okay. I'll wait for them.

No statement that Jesus died in the earliest shadow. Well, yes, there is. I mean, in that creed that was within five years, and James Donne in his new book, Jesus remembered, said that this, to the tradition in this creed dates back to within months of the crucifixion.

Months. And the creed says that he died and that he was buried and that he was raised on the third day. And then you go down a couple of verses later.

What's really interesting is Paul says in verse one, I'm going to preach to you the gospel, and then he gives the creed in verses three through eight. And then in nine he says, hey, whether it's me or they, the apostles, the disciples, we preach Jesus and him crucified. In other words... I'm sorry.

I'm mixing up. Forgive me. This is... We're preaching about the resurrection of Jesus.

So, they're Paul saying he's preaching the same thing as the disciples are. We go down a few more verses. I think it's verse 14, and he calls this... In other words, he's identifying it as the formal and official preaching of the disciples.

So, I mean, this is very early tradition. And then we have Paul again. He mentions resurrection or dead and raised 30 times in his writings.

And then you've also got the creed in Romans chapter one, verse three and four that talks about declared the Son of God with power by his resurrection from the dead. So, resurrection is in the earliest strata. There is nothing earlier that... I mean, we can go trace it back to the disciples themselves.

So, you could say that they're mistaken perhaps or... I mean, I'll let you raise the theory there. But they interpreted their experiences as being resurrection, which mean they understood Jesus of dying. They understood that the body that died was the body that was raised and appeared to them.

And so, therefore, the tomb was empty. Yes, I can see that you feel that I'm not really dealing with your points. But in fact, if you listen carefully, I have been dealing with your points all of the time.

Because, look, you have said fact number one that Jesus died on the cross. And I'm saying the earliest strata of tradition cannot convince you that Jesus actually died on the cross. Now, it's for you to respond to this, but let me lay them all out.

First, notice in Mark's gospel that Pilate has a doubt that Jesus actually died. And for good reason, because crucifixion usually took several days to kill a person. And in Mark's gospel, Jesus was only on the cross for a few hours.

And all of the meetings that are there in Gibson's movie are just imagination, because Mark does not give you any of those details. It is true that some such beating could have been possible for a crucified victim in the Roman world, but notice also that Pilate was sympathetic towards Jesus. He found him innocent and sought to release him.

But he was pressured into agreeing to have Jesus crucified beyond his will. And I think Mel Gibson had it right when he showed the difficulty that Pilate was in there, and he was caught between a rock and a hard place. He finally agreed to have Jesus crucified.

But giving that reticence from Pilate, it is possible that his men would not have delivered to Jesus the most brutal punishment possible. And that finally, Jesus might not have died on the cross. The one thing that might have killed him would have been this peer wound.

But that is mentioned only in the gospel, according to John, that is the last of the four gospels, remember, and that represents the last shadow of evolution among the gospels. And if that spear wound was delivered, you'd be sure that all of the gospel writers would mention it, because it's such a pertinent fact that would finally prove that Jesus died, or at least give strong evidence for that case, and they do not mention it. The scholars think today that this is an imaginative detail added by John's gospel in order to prove against the docetists that Jesus was actually flesh and blood, because we have here the blood and water proving that he is actually real flesh and blood.

He's not here as a spirit on the cross, as some docetists believe. And so we have within the early Estrada, no firm evidence that Jesus actually died on the cross. So I've dealt with the effect, number one, about the empty tomb.

Now historians... I'm sorry, can I get a moment to respond to that? Yeah, absolutely. You're still dealing with the gospels, and I'm appealing to this very early evidence, which predates it by decades from the gospel. If you have answered that, I've shown that this earliest evidence, first of all, the sources are not known.

If you cite James Dunn as saying that this was early, that's James Dunn's guess. I respect him as a great scholar, and I read his writings, but after all, it is a scholarly guess from one individual. Somebody else may have a different guess.

And that creates scholars that just name me any New Testament historians, okay? And as you know, in New Testament historians, it's largely critical, many non-Christians, many non-believers, many atheists are in that discipline. Just name me a single New Testament scholar who doubts the death of Jesus. Notice that I have acknowledged previously that all historians, you can include New Testament scholars, except for Muslims, would agree that Jesus died on the cross, because it is an assumption that somebody who lived 2,000 years ago and is no longer alive is dead.

But that's not why New Testament scholars are concluding that. Well, they are concluding that for the same reason as everyone else. Jesus died on the cross, not because they have any irrefutable proof, and I'm not using irrefutable in the ridiculous sense in which you've treated it.

You see, you have firm evidence that Jesus was on the cross and died on the cross. You said so yourself, everyone agrees on that. Now, do you have firm evidence that he resurrected from the dead? If someone claims that he resurrected from the dead, then we'd be wondering, did you really see him? And did he really die after all? So it is in the light of the later claim that I'm asking, did he really die on the cross? Show me the evidence that he actually died on the cross.

What fatal won't kill him on the cross? And I've named Raymond Brown, who has gone through a long discussion on this. And finally, he cannot conclude what would have killed him. Of course, if you took him down and you buried him under six feet of dirt, he would have died, but that's not what happened to him.

So what really killed Jesus? You said yourself, the medical doctors could not agree on what was the cause of death. So if we don't know the cause of death, the only thing we can say is that a man who lived 2,000 years ago and is no longer with us is dead. And I think that's the universal conclusion.

But if you say he reappeared his disciples, then we should go back and look to see whether he was actually dead. And we cannot find the evidence that he was actually dead. Can he be? Okay.

Well, I think we can. Everybody attest to it. Our understanding of crucifixion militates against it.

And medically, the doctors are saying he died. But I do want to comment on Brown, because you mentioned about the spearwood in Brown. And that's correct.

John does mention it. But John is the only one who mentions nails for crucifixion. It's not even in a crucifixion scene.

He mentions that to Thomas, you see the nail wounds. He's the only one that mentions the curifragm or the breaking of legs. The others didn't do that either.

But we don't deny that nails were used in crucifixion or that legs weren't broken. Let me give you a quote by Raymond Brown since you like to use him. This is in Death of the Messiah, the same book that you quoted from page 1092 and 93.

People who would never bother reading a responsible analysis of the traditions about how Jesus was crucified, died, was buried, and rose from the dead, are fascinated by the report of some new insight to the effect he was not crucified or did not die. And on page 1373 says, except for the romantic few who think that Jesus did not die on the cross, most scholars accept the uniform testimony of the gospels that Jesus died during the Judean prefecture of Pontius Pilate. So again, you brought up the gospels and I'm on this other hill and Raymond Brown is with me.

Not really. Not really, because if you read Raymond Brown carefully from the page that you quoted, and I've read it to myself as well, that's from the section in which he's dealing with fanciful, imaginative scenarios, whereas, for example, the Ahmadiyyas have claimed that Jesus walked all the way to Kashmir and he died and buried there. Or recently there was an Australian lady fearing who claimed that Jesus came back and he was still alive and he got married to Mary Magdalene.

So Brown was responding to this kind of imaginative detail, but Brown himself in the section, if you've read it, dealing with the physiological cause of Christ's death, gives a different picture. In the end, he looks at the kinds of medical examinations that have been done now post-mortem, thousands of years after the fact, and he dismisses them because he says that the details that are given by the gospel writers should not be taken as actual physical details that occurred, but they are due to a number of factors, including imaginative detail added by the evangelists themselves. And you mentioned some of them, yes, they're only in the gospel according to John.

Not to deny that nails were used in crucifixion, but to say that Jesus was actually nailed to the cross, this is something that the gospel writers wrote because they thought that is how you tell about a crucifixion. But crucifixion did not necessarily involve nailing. One could have been tied as well.

And notice that Gibson, in order to have the nail go in the palm, which is traditionally how it is shown, had to also have the arms tied. And notice that the other two who were condemned to be crucified, they had their arms tied to the cross bar, and it was possible to raise a person to the cross and have his arms tied, and he did not have to be nailed. So maybe Jesus was nailed.

But to say that he was necessarily nailed because John says so is really to give us more to imagine about the breaking of the legs. Again, this is doubted by historical scholars because they look at John putting this in place, and they say that John has written this in order to prove the Old Testament scripture to be true. You see, John has done what Gibson has done.

What they have done is that they look at and they say, what should have happened to Jesus if we read the Old Testament right? So Gibson reads in the Old Testament that the Son of God will bruise the head of the serpent. And what does he do? He brings the serpent into the garden and gets them in. So Jesus crushes the head of the serpent.

Where is that in the gospels? Gibson has put that in the movie because he thinks that is how it should have been because it was prophesied. In a similar way, scholars have found that the four gospel writers have written things into the gospels about Jesus, not because this was physically witnessed in the life of Jesus, but because this is how the writers read the Old Testament. They thought this should have happened to Jesus, and so they wrote it.

So John thought that there has to be some way in which there is an attempt. You know, people's legs are being broken, but not Jesus is because it was written, his legs shall not be broken. Even though that was written about the Paschal land, it's something entirely different.

They will look on the one whom he has pierced. Even though that is about false prophets who were pierced because they were false prophets, John brings that here about Jesus. Even though Jesus is not a false prophet, and that passage had nothing to do with Jesus, but John adds these details not because they actually physically, historically were witnessed in the life or around the death of Jesus, but because John thought that this should have happened because the Old Testament said so, and he wrote it as though it happened and the Old Testament confirmed it.

Okay, I know this is my turn. So how about if I just continue with that? Is that okay? Well, let's take a break and a brief breath for a moment. I'm not sure for debating Mel Gibson or Brown or what here.

I would like to encourage us to take a step back and go at this from another direction. Consider that. Take a sip of water.

I've heard several of the points about three times, and my hunch is we're not going anywhere after you're here at three times. Okay, you get the next 15 minutes, and then Shabir, you have 15 minutes after that, and then we'll be going to the audience for some questions about half hour. If you'd care to be thinking now what you would like to raise as a question, we'll go from there.

Thanks for joining us today. If you'd like to learn more about the work and ministry of Dr. Mike Lacona, visit RisenJesus.com, where you can find authentic answers to genuine questions about the reliability of the Gospels and the resurrection of Jesus. Be sure to subscribe to this podcast, visit Dr. Lacona's YouTube channel, or consider becoming a monthly supporter.

This has been the Risen Jesus podcast, a ministry of Dr. Mike Lacona. Bye!