Did Jesus Live 100 B.C.?
By Dr. Mohiuddin
Waseem
According to the Christian
Scholarship of today the date of Jesus Christ’s birth cannot be placed with
certainty. For many it might seem obvious that Jesus must have born in the year
1 of the Christian era (C.E) or Anno Domini (A.D). But as the Christian
calendar was developed 500 years later by a monk named Dionysius, who
apparently miscalculated it by around 4 years, the birth of Christ today is
believed to have happen in 4 B.C. Because all Christian references for Christ’s
birth are from New Testament (obviously) you are inclined to believe that it
happened when Roman were the rulers. And if you believe that it was in fact the
Roman era as the New Testament suggests it becomes logical to follow the
subsequent events in his ministry from the Bible including his arrest, trial
and crucifixion a collaborated effort between the Romans and the Jews of his
time.
Many Muslim scholars
entertain the Christian account of Christ’s suffering as a possibility but as
the Holy Quran explicitly states that Jesus was “neither killed nor crucified”
these Muslim scholars believed that someone else might have substituted in
place of Christ to suffer the torment on the cross, which was in fact a minority
opinion among a few early Christian sects and some how in the course of history
became a Muslim opinion. If you ask these Muslim sources when exactly the
substitution occurred you will find a variety of opinions about it. Some
believe it happened in a room before Jesus’ arrest when his likeness was put on
one of his disciples who volunteered (referring to the fabricated Gospel of
Barnabas); others may tell you that it happened when he was carrying the cross
en route to crucifixion; yet still others say it happened on the cross.
But before we discuss this
point any further and for the sake of discussion let me divide the evidence we
have about Christology into two genres. One is of course the “Western” Roman
Catholic account which influenced the Eastern Orthodox Church as well as all
the
Because the Talmudic account
of Jesus and his mother are somewhat hostile in nature many Christians try to
refrain from discussing those. But with out repeating the allegations of Talmud
there seems to be an important sentence in it stating that “Jesus appeared
during the time of Alexander Janneus’ (roughly 100
B.C) who happened to be the second last Jewish King of Maccabee
family who ruled with an iron fist that history has recorded that he ordered
crucifixion of eight hundred rabbis in a single day all because of religious
differences. Even though Talmud was written 200-600 A.D at a time when
Christian-Jewish sachem was at its height, the rabbis did not mention any part
of Romans in the alleged trial and Crucifixion of Jesus Christ when blaming
others could have saved their own neck from Christian persecution; instead they
boosted in Talmud that Jesus was killed at the hands of Jews and that makes me
inclined to believe that may be it was in fact the real time period when Jesus’
actually appeared.
Similarly, The Holy Quran
also does not mention a single word of Roman involvement, rather like Talmud
the story remains purely a Jewish matter.
The Holy Quran says, “The People of
the Scripture (Jew) ask of thee (Mohammad) that thou shouldst
cause an (actual) Book to descend upon them from heaven. They asked a greater
thing of Moses aforetime, for they said: Show us Allah plainly. The storm of
lightning seized them for their wickedness. Then (even after that) they chose
the calf (for worship) after clear proofs (of Allah's Sovereignty) had come unto
them. And We forgave them that! And We
bestowed on Moses evident authority.
And We caused
the Mount to tower above them at (the taking of) their covenant: and We bade
them: Enter the gate, prostrate! and we bade them:
Transgress not the Sabbath! and We took from them a
firm covenant.
Then because of their breaking of
their covenant, and their disbelieving in the revelations of Allah, and their
slaying of the Prophets wrongfully, and their saying: Our hearts are hardened,
Nay, but Allah hath set a seal upon them for their disbelief, so that they
believe not save a few.
And because of their disbelief and of
their speaking against Mary a tremendous calumny;
And because of their saying: We slew
the Messiah Jesus son of Mary, Allah's messenger; They
slew him not nor crucified him, but the matter was made dubious unto them; and
lo! those who disagree concerning it are in doubt
thereof; they have no knowledge thereof save pursuit of a conjecture ; they
slew him not for certain,
But Allah took him up unto Himself.
Allah was ever mighty, wise. (Holy Qurann 4;
153-159).
If we stick to Jewish and Quranic accounts it becomes clear that Jesus was born not
in the Roman era but at a time when Jews were the rulers in
And God knows best.
