Case 10 · Polemic · The class
Islam
The crucifixion the Qur’an denies, the Bible it both praises and contradicts, and its own text’s history.
12 claims · 26 exhibits · 30 objections answered
What this case argues
- Jesus of Nazareth was executed by crucifixion under the Roman governor Pontius Pilate.
- A set of facts about Jesus that most scholars accept is best explained by the resurrection, which makes the disagreement with Islam a historical question, not just a religious one.
- Jesus made claims to divine authority in first century Jewish terms, so the objection that he never claimed to be God misreads the evidence.
- The belief in a resurrected, divine Jesus is not a later invention by Paul, because a creed he quotes predates his letters and the first apostles endorsed his message.
- The New Testament text is early, widespread, and stable, with copies that predate Islam by centuries, which undercuts the claim that the Bible was corrupted.
- The Qur’an praises the Torah and the Gospel as reliable guidance, yet the Bible it praises contradicts the Qur’an, which creates a genuine dilemma.
- Literary inimitability, i’jaz, the Qur’an’s central evidence for its divine origin, cannot establish divine origin: beauty is not inspiration, the test is bound to one language, and it has no objective measure.
- Traditional Islamic sources report that Muhammad married Aisha when she was six and consummated the marriage when she was nine, and a life presented as the timeless example cannot be defended by the customs of its time.
- The founders’ relationship to force differed: Muhammad led armies and governed a state, and Islam spread by conquest within decades of his death, while Jesus renounced the sword and his followers spread the faith under persecution.
- Leaving Islam carries a heavy cost: classical law treats apostasy as a crime, about a dozen countries keep the death penalty for it, and converts commonly lose family and community.
- The Qur’an was not perfectly preserved: Islam’s own sources record an early standardization that burned variant copies, and early manuscripts and the canonical readings preserve real differences.
- The Qur’an’s statements about Christian belief and history are hard to square with the record: it describes the Trinity as God, Jesus and Mary, and addresses Mary the mother of Jesus as the sister of Aaron.
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