The cross, Israel and the Qur’an’s historical test
Why the first witnesses and God’s covenant with the Jewish people still matter
PART TWO OF TWO
The deepest divide between Islam and Christianity is not whether Jesus matters. Both traditions honor him. The divide is over what happened to him, who he is, and—especially for Messianic Jews—whether Israel retains a distinct covenantal calling. The dominant classical Muslim interpretation of the Qur’an denies the crucifixion; the New Testament says Jesus was crucified, raised and proclaimed by his first Jewish followers as Messiah. Islam’s final-prophet claim is sometimes used to argue that the Gospel was altered and Israel’s covenant superseded. These are not small differences of emphasis. They are rival accounts of history and revelation. Each must be tested by its sources, its logic and the story of Israel.
The cross was public history before it became a dispute
Surah 4:157–158 says Jesus was not killed or crucified and that God raised him. For centuries, most Muslim interpreters understood this as denying the execution described in the Gospels, often developing substitution accounts. The verse itself names no substitute or explains how the event unfolded. Some modern Muslim scholars argue that it denies the enemies’ victory rather than the historical crucifixion. That debate should be acknowledged; it does not erase the conflict between the common reading and the earliest Christian testimony.
Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians preserves a message he says he received: the Messiah died, was buried, was raised and appeared to witnesses (1 Corinthians 15:3–8). Paul wrote within the first generation of Jesus’ followers, centuries before the Qur’an. He names Cephas, the Twelve, James and others. He was a committed believer, not a detached observer; his letter does not turn resurrection into a laboratory result. It does establish that belief in Jesus’ death and resurrection was early, central and rooted in testimony—not a late invention centuries after the church forgot its origins. A Cambridge study of the pre-Pauline tradition examines how early that confession may be.
The Roman historian Tacitus, writing outside the Christian movement, reports that Christus was executed under Pontius Pilate during Tiberius’ reign. Tacitus cannot establish the resurrection, but he corroborates the setting and execution. Cambridge historian Helen Bond places Jesus’ death around Passover in the early first century while noting that the precise year remains debated. The cross stands in the public world of Roman rule, not in a story first told by Christians after Islam arose.
Historical method cannot prove by itself that God raised Jesus. It can ask which account best explains the evidence: the first-century followers’ testimony that the crucified Jesus appeared to them for which they were so often willing to be publically martyred, or a later Islamic claim that Jesus was not crucified to which Paul specifically noted would make Christianity pitiable.
Muslims believe God can act in history; the dispute is not whether divine action is possible. It is whether God’s act was to rescue Jesus from crucifixion or to raise him through death. The Qur’an’s later authority may settle that question for a Muslim who already accepts it as final revelation. It does not function as independent first-century evidence. A Christian should ask why a seventh-century Qur’anic correction deserves priority over earlier New Testament sources the Qur’an elsewhere reveals are inspired—and reasonably expect the Muslim to reply with more than “because the Qur’an says so.”
The cross is not defeat
Some Muslim arguments treat the cross as incompatible with God’s honor for his Messiah: his enemies could not have defeated the prophet God raised. Christians agree that Jesus was not defeated; they argue that the cross was not defeat. The New Testament makes the opposite claim: the cross is where God’s faithfulness is revealed. Christians differ on how to explain the atonement, but the Gospel does not present an unrelated victim seized against his will: Jesus says he lays down his life freely (John 10:17–18). Paul says God was in the Messiah reconciling the world (2 Corinthians 5:19). In the cross, God does not outsource mercy’s cost; he enters it and bears it. The resurrection is God’s answer to the apparent defeat. Muslims may reject that account of atonement, but it is not the Gospel claim that God lost control or mistook a prophet for his enemy. Furthermore, where is the Islamic atoning for sin without the shedding of blood and consequent death, for isn’t such the wages of sin? Do Muslims enter Heaven by right, or by mercy? If not absolutely perfect (or not perfected by Christ) then not by right, and if by mercy how so since doesn’t the righteousness of Allah demand payment for sin? How Holy! Holy! Holy! is the God of Abraham?
The Qur’an remembers Israel—even in rebuke
The Qur’an’s picture of the Jewish people is not reducible to one verdict. It remembers God’s favor to the Children of Israel (Surah 2:47), recounts Moses’ command to enter the Holy Land assigned to them (Surah 5:21), and also condemns Israel’s disobedience (Surah 5:70). It even says of the People of the Book, “they are not all alike” (Surah 3:113). Muslim interpreters may understand the land passage as applying to an ancient generation rather than determining modern borders or sovereignty. That is a real interpretive question. But the Qur’an cannot responsibly be reduced to a warrant for collective contempt or the claim that Jews have no historical connection to the land.
That connection is not a modern invention. The ninth-century BCE Tel Dan Stele refers to the “House of David” outside the Bible, and Jewish communities remained in the land through late antiquity and the early Islamic period. These facts do not settle modern borders or make every Israeli policy righteous; they do make it impossible to erase Jewish historical rootedness. Palestinian attachment and experience are not erased by acknowledging Jewish history either. A truthful account can hold both peoples’ histories in view.
Israel’s covenant has not been transferred away
The biblical argument goes deeper than archaeology. God’s covenant with Abraham includes his descendants and the land (Genesis 17:7–8). Jeremiah’s promised New Covenant is explicitly made “with the house of Israel and the house of Judah,” not with a replacement people (Jeremiah 31:31–37). Paul calls Israel beloved because of the patriarchs and says God’s gifts and calling are irrevocable (Romans 11:28–29). Gentile believers are grafted into Israel’s olive tree; they are warned not to boast over the branches that bear them (Romans 11:17–24).
That does not mean Israel is exempt from judgment. The prophets rebuke Israel precisely because covenant brings responsibility: “You only have I known … therefore I will punish you” (Amos 3:2). Nor does a biblical covenant alone settle every question about modern borders, security or government policy. It does mean Christians cannot use the New Covenant to declare the Jewish people erased, and Muslims cannot use the Qur’an’s rebukes as a license for collective blame. A government can be criticized. Denying Jewish history or Israel’s right to exist is a different claim.
A Jewish witness without contempt
Messianic Judaism places Yeshua where the New Testament places him: inside Israel’s story, as Israel’s Messiah and the hope of the nations. The earliest witnesses did not preach a Gentile religion that made Jews obsolete. They announced Israel’s Messiah from Jerusalem, opened the Torah, Prophets and Psalms, and called the nations to repentance and forgiveness (Luke 24:25–27, 44–47).
That witness must be honest about Christian sin. Churches have persecuted Jews and preached that God rejected the people through whom the Messiah came. Paul’s warning against boasting leaves no room for that arrogance. Christians who challenge Muslim claims about Scripture must first stop distorting their own: Jesus did not abolish Israel, and the church did not inherit permission to despise the Jewish people.
So begin with a Muslim neighbor by listening carefully to the Qur’an’s honor for Jesus. Then open the Bible and ask the decisive questions: Which account stands closest to the witnessed events? What does Israel’s covenant say about the Messiah’s people? Can the cross be God’s victory rather than a prophet’s defeat? The Christian answer is costly and clear: Yeshua was crucified, his first followers testified that God raised him, and Israel’s covenantal story still matters.
The invitation then, is to read the martyred witnesses’ testimony of the Lamb of God becoming the Passover meal in Jerusalem, and wondering why these Apostles and disciples were willing to publically be crucified (St. Peter upside down), when their Lord and Savior according to Mohammed was not so willing and in fact did not die.
What a catastrophic deception upon these sheep so loved by the Shepherd. Why did the God of Jesus and Abraham wait almost 700 years to fix this deception through Mohammed?
Part 1: Can the Qur’an’s Jesus Be Israel’s Messiah?
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