Jesus In Kashmir

The fundamental doctrines of Church Christianity are based upon the death of Jesus on the cross, his resurrection and his bodily ascension to heaven. Though Christian masses continue to render lip service to this fiction, few thinkers, in Christian lands today believe in or dare assert the historic authenticity of these supposed events. There are not even prima facie considerations to sustain the theory of death upon the cross and there is no sure evidence to support the unnatural phenomena of the resurrection and the ascension.

Indeed the gospels themselves furnish the most formidable refutations of these myths. The basic doctrine of church has been that Jesus being son of god appeared in human shape to take upon himself the accumulated burden of humanity’s sins and to expiate them on the cross so that mankind may attain salvation through belief in the atonement.

 Being son of god he was very god himself and through his death upon the cross he became “accursed” for mankind’s sake and remained in that stage for three days to atone for the sins of mankind. He, then, came back to life and ascended bodily to heaven. He will descend to the earth again in the latter days and judge mankind.

There is nothing in the authentic sayings and teachings of Jesus to support or justify any of this. According to himself he was raised among Israel particularly for the guidance of the 

“lost sheep of the House of Israel.”¹ 

Were it true that he was very god himself and that the sole purpose of his sojourn upon earth was to expiate mankind’s sins upon the cross, he would not have prayed in the agony and asked his disciples to pray in the garden of Gethsemane that, if possible, the cup (of death upon the cross) may be turned away ². Jesus believed that god heard his prayers. He must have believed that this prayer would also be heard. If the whole purpose of his advent was to atone for the sins of mankind for his death upon the Cross why this agonized prayer to be spared such as death? This prayer was a complete denial of the whole alleged purpose of his advent.

 He must have received Divine assurance of deliverance in answer of his prayers.³ For, when, as a mortal being he perceived upon the cross that all apparent chances of his being delivered from his humiliation and agonizing demise upon the cross had disappeared, he was afflicted with the apprehension lest some default on his part should had defeated the divine purpose of deliverance of which he had received assurance after his earnest prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane. This brought on fresh agony and he cried out 

“My God, my God! Why has Thou forsaken me”? ⁴ 

If the death of Jesus upon the cross was the fulfillment of the very purpose for which he had being sent among mankind, the realization that death was now creeping upon him and that he was fast slipping into unconsciousness, should have filled him with a sense of exultation that he had now almost fulfilled the purpose of his advent, and that within a few hours that purpose would be completely achieved. Had that been so, his cry, instead of being one of agony and almost of despair, would have been a shout of exultation. He would have proclaimed, “OH glory! Oh glory! The purpose is fulfilled. Mankind is redeemed through me,” instead of crying in anguish “My god, my god, why hast Thou forsaken me”.

Had he died upon the Cross and came back to life again, he would have proceeded to the highest vantage point in Jerusalem and proclaimed his triumph over death to the unbelieving Jews, and putting forward this irrefutable proof of his being the son of God, would have invited them to believe in him as such. He did not do this. Instead, he met the disciples a few times to convince them of that fact he had not died upon the cross had not become “accursed” and was still alive in his physical body.⁵ He charges the disciples not to spread this news about him and he took precautions to meet them only in a secret.⁶ There is not a single instance on record of any contemporary Jew or gentile having believed in him because he had died  and had come to life, and yet had been the case what greater miracle could anybody had desired to see ? All this completely contradicts the assertion that death upon cross was the very purpose of his advent and that purpose had been fulfilled.

Jesus himself never taught this. He insisted that the way to salvation was through keeping “the law and the prophets.” Which law? Obviously, the Mosaic Law. Which prophets? Clearly prophets who had succeeded Moses in Israel. He reiterated that he had not come destroy the law but to fulfill it. ”Till heaven and earth pass, not one jot or title shall in no wise pass from the law⁷.” He exhorted his disciples and followers to do what the Scribes and Pharisees told them to do, for they sat in Moses, seat and were thus the authorized and traditional interpreters of the law of the Moses though he warned against imitations of their deeds for they say and do not.⁸

The whole body of the doctrine, based upon the Law being accursed and salvation being possible only through atonement, is a later innovation and finds no support whatever in anything that Jesus said or did. It is asserted that he described himself as the son of God but this was clearly a metaphorical use of the expression common in sacred scriptures. When charged with this he turned upon his accusers saying that if those to whom the Word of God came were called God or even the first born of God, why should he be charged with blasphemy for using the very words. If they had the right to explain them metaphorically, why should this right be denied him.⁹ The Bible describes Israel (Jacob) as God’s son, even the “first born¹⁰”. The peacemaker is described as the “Children of God”.¹¹ In the lord’s prayer God is addressed by the faithful as Father, the faithful being this the son of God. The Bible has frequently used this expression metaphorically to describe the chosen of God, the righteous people and even the whole mankind.

Jesus had announced that his “wicked and adulterous” generation would be given no sign except the sign of Prophet Jonas¹². It is worth remembering that Jonas entered the belly of the whale alive, remained there alive, though unconscious and emerge therefrom alive. So was Jesus taken down from the Cross alive though unconscious, he remained in the sepulchre alive and emerge therefrom alive. Had he died upon the Cross, there would have been no resemblance between his case and that of the Prophet Jonas, unless one where also to believe that Jonas too had died in the belly of the whale and had come back to life after the emerged therefrom, a theory would scarcely be acceptable to the Church¹³.

It is significant that the text of the Revised Standard Version (1946) of the New Testament published by Thomas Nelson & Sons, New York, no longer makes mention of the bodily ascension of Jesus to heaven.

The Muslims believe, as taught by the Holy Quran, that Jesus was a righteous Prophet raised by God among Israel. He himself emphasized that among Israel and if that Jews rejected him the kingdom of heaven would pass to another people. Therefore, prophet hood came to an end among Israel and the comforter, the Spirit of Truth, was raised from among the descendants of Ishmael, that is to say, from among the brethaen of Israel.¹⁴ He was the last Law-bearing Prophet and the Law proclaimed through him in the word of God, the Holy Quran, is a “all truth” through which mankind has been guided, as proclaimed by Jesus.¹⁵

The earnest prayer of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, his agonized cry from the Cross, the precautions taken by him when his disciples after his recovery from the swoon into which he had been plunged upon the Cross-all consistent with the truth as taught by the Holy Quran. The prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane was inspired by the natural desire of Jesus of escape the humiliation and the agony of death upon the Cross. This desire was all the more keen as he realized that in case the Jews succeeded in compassing his death upon the Cross, they would ever after, claim, as they in fact do up to this day, that Jesus died upon the Cross became “accursed” and could not, therefore, have been a righteous Prophet.¹⁶ Far from being anxious to become “accursed” for the sake of mankind, Jesus was anxious to escape such stigma, for the sake of his people, so that this should not become for them a permanent barrier against their acceptance of him as a righteous Prophet. The notion of becoming “accursed” even for a short period for the sake of mankind was so alien to his mind that he assured one of the two thieves who were put upon the Cross at the same time with him that the latter would be with him in paradise that very day, by that time Jesus, finding that there was no apparent way of escape left, was beginning to be somewhat reconciled to the prospect of death, if that was the inscrutable Will of God though he still shrank from the dreadful consequence for the Jews, if he once became “accursed” in their eyes. He thus assured that if both of them did cross the valley of the shadow of death that day, they would be together in paradise!¹⁷

Even at the very moment when the body of Jesus was about to be taken down from the Cross to be handed over to Joseph of Arimathea and was pricked in the side (possibly in the region of pleura) by a Roman soldier of his spear, blood and water came out, a sure testimony that life was not extinct.¹⁸

It may, therefore, be accepted as beyond controversy that Jesus did not die upon the Cross. He was in a swoon when his body was taken down from the Cross. He was lovingly tended and cared for and healing ointments and herbs were applied to his wounds from which he recovered sufficiently by the third day to be able to leave the sepulchre. Thereafter, he met his disciples on different occasions (there is a good deal of confusion with regard to this in the gospel account) always taking precautions lest his Presence among them and, therefore, his escape from death should become known to his enemies. Having fully established testimony to his not having died upon the Cross he resolved, under Divine Command, to leave Palestine and to journey through lands where the lost tribes of Israel dwelt so that he could carry the Divine message to them.

Thus Jesus completed his mission, died a natural death and buried in Srinagar, Kashmir. On Divine revelation and subsequent research, Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, the Founder of the Ahmadiyya Movement, located the tomb in the Khanyar Street of the city of the Srinagar where it can still be visited. This discovery has dispelled any doubts as to the fact that Jesus did not die on the Cross and has removed all the uncertainty which had enshrouded the life of Jesus for many centuries. May God rest his soul in peace and have mercy on him!

References

1.   Matthew 15:24

2.   Matthew 26:39

3.   Herbrew 5:7

4.   Matthew 27:46

5.   Matthew 28:9,10

6.   Matthew 23:19

7.   Matthew 5:17,18

8.   Matthew 23:2,3

9.   John 10:34,35

10. Exodus 4:22

11. Matthew 5:9

12. Matthew 16:4

13. Jonah Chapter 2

14. Deuteronomy 18:18

15. John 16:13

16. Deuteronomy 21:23

17. Luke 23:43

18. John 19:32

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