My favorite Ratio Christi person of all is Eric Chabot. He works at Ohio State University. He is the best, because can teach on many topics, he gets the best speakers to lecture, and mentors the most promising Christian students. I could tell you so many stories about his achievements as a Christian. Anyway, he has a new substack, and I decided to check it out to see what he’s writing about. I was not disappointed.

Here is his latest article, where he talks about what works best in real conversations with Muslim students:

Over the last several years, I have had many opportunities to engage in spiritual discussions with Muslims in our campus ministry in Columbus, Ohio. On several occasions, I have told Muslims that I will never become a Muslim because of their position on the death of Jesus. For Christians, the death and resurrection of Jesus are central to the Gospel message. After all, the kerygma in the Book of Acts is that the Messiah was crucified according to the plan of God (Acts 2:23), that He was raised from the dead, and that He appeared to His disciples (Acts 2:24, 31–32; 3:15–26; 10:40–41; 17:31; 26:23).

Muslims, however, believe that Jesus did not die. Instead, they believe the early disciples were deceived and that Allah delivered Jesus. The Qur’an says in Sura 4:157:

“And [for] their saying, ‘Indeed, we have killed the Messiah, Jesus, the son of Mary, the messenger of Allah.’ And they did not kill him, nor did they crucify him; but another was made to resemble him to them. And indeed, those who differ over it are in doubt about it. They have no knowledge of it except the following of assumption. And they did not kill him, for certain.”

From this passage, most Muslim scholars conclude the following:

• Jesus was not actually killed on the cross.
• Someone else may have been made to look like Him, or the event was made to appear that way.
• God rescued Jesus and raised Him to heaven.

Across both Sunni and Shia traditions, it is commonly believed that:

• Jesus was taken alive into heaven.

• He will return before the Day of Judgment.

• He will defeat Al-Masih ad-Dajjal (the false messiah).

• He will eventually die a normal human death.

Now, my podcast partner Rose is an expert in Islam, and she loves to use this argument with Muslims, along with the The Islamic Dilemma. Why is this argument so good? It’s so good because you have a clear case of two historical sources asserting two mutually contradictory points. Christianity teaches that Jesus did die on the cross. Islam teaches that Jesus did not die on the cross. Only one can be right. It’s the perfect point to bring up with Muslims, because it’s a clear disagreement, and one that can be settled by the ordinary methods of historical analysis. The right answer depends on which sources come first – who is in contact with the eyewitnesses at the time when history was recorded?

Eric writes:

[T]he Qur’an was written roughly six hundred years after the life of Jesus, making it a much later source of information than the New Testament. The evidence suggests that the core historical content of the Gospel—the death and resurrection of Jesus—was circulating very early within the Christian community. As mentioned earlier, historians look for records that are closest in time to the events they describe. Given the early date of 1 Corinthians 15:3–8, along with other sources, it is evident that this material is historically earlier than the Qur’an.

If you don’t know about the early creed from 1 Corinthians 15:3-8, you really should listen to episode 1 of the Knight and Rose Show. We quoted the writings of a famous atheist German New Testament scholar and atheist (formerly professor at the University of Göttingen). He dates the elements of the creed in 1 Corinthians 15:3-7 (or more broadly 15:3-8) very early. You can find his own statement in his book “The Resurrection of Jesus” (1994), where he states:

“the elements in the tradition are to be dated to the first two years after the crucifixion of Jesus…not later than three years… the formation of the appearance traditions mentioned in I Cor.15.3-8 falls into the time between 30 and 33 CE.”

So, this is very, very early evidence for the crucifixion of Jesus. And the crucifixion is of course echoed by other non-Biblical sources, e.g. – Tacitus, Flavius Josephus, The Babylonian Talmud and Lucian of Samosata.

Eric notes that it’s not just early sources that matter. The number of sources matters too. He has a list of dozens of sources going from the event itself right up to the late sixth century.

My podcast partner Rose talked about the implications of Allah allowing people to believe in mistakes for 6 centuries before Mohammed finally shows up to correct them in episode 11 of the Knight and Rose Show.

Eric makes the same point:

Consider the implication of the Islamic claim. According to Islam, Allah allowed the first-century disciples to be deceived into believing that Jesus literally died on a cross. Not only that, but this supposed deception continued for roughly six centuries until Muhammad received a revelation through the angel Gabriel.

His article is great. It’s something that everyone should know how to do. I think most Christians think of Christianity as “our tradition”. It’s what Westerners believe. It’s our family tradition, our community tradition. Then, when they encounter Islam, they think of it as just “Middle East Christianity”. That’s just their tradition, on the same historical footing as our tradition.

Certainly, it’s easy to think that all religions are the same, and many Christians do. And unfortunately, there’s not much apologetics being taught in church. Pastors don’t do much to teach their flocks how to test a religion for truth. Instead, pastors teach Christians to share their testimony. And when Muslims share their testimony, Christians aren’t equipped to have a truth-focused discussion where evidence is weighed.

Well, I think that what Eric has written there is about the best you can do as a lay Christian. So, read his article closely. Notice how he quotes non-Christian scholars to make his points. Don’t let yourself get tricked into discussions about which book is more holy. If you stick with the historical evidence, then the discussion doesn’t get heated. On the contrary, you will be shedding light on the subject, when you explain your views and how you arrived at them. My mom’s side of the family is all Muslim, and none of them ever got mad at me when I explained this argument to them. It just works.