Researcher Delves into What Quran Says about Jesus Crucifixion
Dr. Ryann Elizabeth Craig, an Assistant Research Professor at Georgetown University, provided insights about her recent research while addressing an online lecture hosted by the Inekas Institute on September 6, 2024.
She explored the Quran’s depiction of the crucifixion, offering a fresh perspective on how early Muslim and Christian thinkers engaged with the text.
The presentation is part of a larger project that examines patterns of discourse about the cross between Christians and Muslims from the mid-7th to the mid-13th century CE, she said, adding that it aims to explore the interaction and mutual influence between Christian and Islamic religious texts regarding the crucifixion of Jesus and analyze key differences in historical and contemporary interpretations.
She noted that the research will be published in a forthcoming book, titled The Chronic Cross and the Lost Substitute, in fall of 2025 and is her doctoral dissertation.
In her presentation, Craig focused on the patterns of creedal statements and Christian confessions of faith as well as Quranic verses related to the crucifixion of Jesus.
She identified the creeds, which essentially address the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus, as central to her study, highlighting the differences between Christian and Islamic interpretations.
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The discussion focused on Surah An Nisa, verses 157-158, a passage that has been central to theological debates about Jesus’ fate. While later Islamic exegesis largely adopted the substitute theory—the idea that someone else was crucified in Jesus' place—she argued that this was not necessarily the dominant understanding in early Christian-Muslim exchanges.
An English rendering of the mentioned Quranic verses reads:
And for their saying, ‘We killed the Messiah, Jesus son of Mary, the apostle of Allah’—though they did not kill him nor did they crucify him, but so it was made to appear to them. Indeed those who differ concerning him are surely in doubt about him: they do not have any knowledge of that beyond following conjectures, and certainly, they did not kill him. Indeed, Allah raised him up toward Himself, and Allah is all-mighty, all-wise.
This Quranic passage challenges the claim that Jesus was crucified and suggests that divine intervention altered the perception of the event, noted the researcher.
The scholar highlighted that Christian communities of late antiquity may have heard this passage in the context of their own theological debates, particularly regarding the nature of Jesus’ death and resurrection.
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She noted that early Christian theology was marked by disputes over how to describe Jesus’ nature—whether he was fully divine, fully human, or a union of both. These discussions shaped key formulations of faith, such as the Nicene Creed (325 CE) and the later Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed (381 CE), which affirmed Jesus’ crucifixion, death, burial, and resurrection, she added.
Among Eastern Christian communities, there were significant disagreements. “Christians debated how to phrase who or what nature died on the cross. The key questions were: Is Jesus one nature or two? And can the divine nature die?” she said.
She highlighted the views of the Diophysites, who believed Jesus had two separate natures and that only his human nature could suffer and die. She also discussed the Miaphysites, who maintained that Jesus' divine nature experienced suffering in some way.
Meanwhile, a comparative study of biblical and Quranic texts reveals differences and similarities in how they describe the events related to the crucifixion, death, and resurrection of Jesus, she noted.
In the Bible, particularly in 1 Corinthians and the Acts of the Apostles, the pattern of "crucifixion, death, burial, and resurrection" is observed, she said, adding that in these versions, Jesus' death is not explicitly mentioned, and burial implicitly refers to death.
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The pattern in church councils generally aligns with the biblical narrative, mentioning crucifixion, suffering, burial, and resurrection in sequence, she said, adding that the universality of Christ's death and the limited post-resurrection appearances to a specific group of witnesses are emphasized.
“When the Quran’s crucifixion account speaks of Jesus as not killed or crucified, with an appearance and a raising, this reverberated with Eastern Christian articulations of ‘crucified, died, buried, appeared, and raised,’” said Craig.
Surah 4:157-158, she continued, introduces a slightly different sequence; killed, crucified, with an appearance, disagreement about belief, and God’s raising of Jesus. The scholar observed that this shift might have resonated with Christians who were already accustomed to theological disputes about the crucifixion.
She said the phrase “shubbeha lahum” [but so it was made to appear to them] in the Quranic verse needs more detailed research as the wording does not explicitly state what or who was made to appear crucified.
Craig said that some later interpretations suggested that another person was substituted for Jesus. However, she argued that early Christian-Muslim discussions do not necessarily support this interpretation.
“Rather than debating whether it was Jesus who died on the cross, early exchanges often focused on divine agency in human affairs, the validity of eyewitness knowledge, and the theological implications of the crucifixion,” the scholar explained.
Craig highlighted that this emphasis on divine agency—“Allah raised him up toward Himself”—parallels similar themes found in certain Christian theological traditions.
Craig further analyzed and compared Quranic and Christian texts, noting that in the latter the verb "ṣalaba" (to crucify) is commonly used while in the Quranm the phrase "mā ṣalabūhu" (they did not crucify him) is used.
Regarding resurrection, the Christian texts use the verb "qāma" (to rise), directly referring to resurrection, however, in the Quran, the verb "rafaʿa" (to raise) is used, which has a different meaning and does not necessarily refer to resurrection, noted the researcher.
Following the revelation of the Quran, Christian communities engaged with its message in ways that reflected their own evolving theological debates, she said, adding that some Christian authors began to incorporate Quranic terminology into their discussions of Jesus’ fate.
A prominent example, she noted, is the 8th-century bishop Theodore Abu Qurrah, who was challenged by a Muslim interlocutor: “Tell me, bishop, when your god hung on the cross, did he die?” The bishop reportedly responded: “We are right both ways.”
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The scholar noted that Christian theologians increasingly adapted their phrasing in response to Islamic arguments, sometimes using the Quranic term “killed” rather than “died.”
“We see shifts in how Eastern Christians articulated their formulas of faith as they engaged with the Quran and their Muslim interlocutors, as well as continued examination of the Christological differences that necessitated delineating what Christians meant when they spoke of Jesus dying on the cross,” she added.
Craig argued that the Quran’s crucifixion passage engages with late antique theological debates, not merely later Islamic interpretations. She suggested that the text challenges assumptions about Jesus’ crucifixion rather than outright denying it.
“The Quran fully enters the conversation, reintroducing a key biblical word with ‘killed,’ adjusting the order of events slightly, and focusing on doubt and differing beliefs,” the scholar argued.
Craig noted that she had not found direct hadiths about the crucifixion or death of Jesus in Islamic texts, with most information on this topic coming from tafsir (exegesis) and Qisas al-Anbiya (Stories of the Prophets).
In hadiths, Jesus' role in the end times and his return are more emphasized, she said.
She also said that a deep intertextuality exists between the Quran and late antique Christian theology, suggesting that its discussion of crucifixion was not an isolated declaration but part of a broader, evolving religious discourse.
Dr. Ryann Elizabeth Craig is a scholar of Christian-Muslim relations and Quranic studies, serving as Special Assistant to the Vice President for Mission and Ministry at Georgetown University. She previously directed student programs at the Berkley Center and is a Faculty Fellow at the Center for Social Justice. With a Ph.D. from the Catholic University of America, her research focuses on medieval Christian Arabic and Syriac engagements with the Quran. She co-edited “A Contested Coexistence” (2020).
Please note that the content reflects the views of the scholar and does not represent the views of the International Quran News Agency.
