CODE FORESEES MOSLEM BELIEFS ABOUT JUDAS VS. JESUS

In comparative religion class at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University on November 29, 2011 my son's professor taught that Moslems believe it wasn't Jesus who was crucified, it was Judas. Judaism does not accept either Jesus or Mohammed. However in the matrix below, the Torah Code seems to foresee the dispute between Islam and Christianity. The axis term JUDAS (is) JESUS is at its second lowest skip in wrapped Torah. Parallel to the axis term, but at half its skip, is THE KORAN which some Moslems believe implies that Judas was substituted for Jesus on the Cross. MESSIAH at skip +2 touches THE KORAN. The actual Koran statement (which does not mention Judas) is shown to the right of the matrix. This issue raised its head again at Rollins College where a student challenged his Muslim professor's belief. The professor, Areej Zufari, should have been careful to explain her belief as an opinion, rather than a fact. Her belief that the Nazarene is not God is not only held by Islam, but also by Judaism. On issues like this all sides need a little sensitivity training. Without a time machine, none of us can prove our beliefs as fact, nor can we easily argue logically from a common foundation, as we do not all even accept the same holy books.  Christianity reject the Koran, while Judaism rejects both the New Testament and the Koran..

Note: On Figure 1 I've taken the liberty of amending a few words in respect of Jewish law. The name of the Nazarene was edited from the news article where it would have been placed over the Torah text. The segment using his name that is quoted in the Koran was left as it was in that text because it did not overlap the Torah.

In 1978 when I published my first book, The Great Christ Debate (under the pen name of Etomar Ben Roffman) I had seen the section of the Koran quoted above. But, as I mentioned before, it doesn't name Judas. So where did the Judas idea come from? The following quotes are from a Moslem source:

Nawab Azam Yar Jung (Maulvi Charagh Ali) writes:

" ‘And those who differ therein are in doubt about it; they have no knowledge of it, but follow only conjecture’ [The Quran, 4:157]… Firstly, the Jews asserted that they had killed Jesus. Secondly, the Christians believe that he was crucified. Thirdly, there is the view of sects such as the Basilidans and the Corinthians that in his place Joseph Simon was killed. Fourthly, there is the opinion of Barnabas that Judas Iscariot was crucified in place of Jesus. The Quran declares all these views as conjectures. …

"They killed him not for certain" [4:157], i.e., he was not killed properly as killing ought to be done, or, he was not killed for sure. How could he have been killed for certain when he only spent about three hours upon the cross, which is not sufficient to cause death.

A Christian attack on Moslem beliefs about Judas is here. Apparently there is reason to believe that the Gospel of Barnabas is a forgery. The following two paragraphs are taken from here:

Islam, on the other hand, denies the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus. Muslims believe that God rescued Jesus from the schemes of the unbelievers and raised Christ to heaven. The general Islamic view is that someone else was crucified in Jesus' place, with most Muslims believing that Judas Iscariot was the one whom the unbelievers killed.

According to this majority view of modern Islamic scholarship Judas was made to look like Jesus on the night when Christ was to be crucified. The unbelieving Jews thought that they had crucified Christ when in reality it was Judas that they had killed.

EXTRACT FROM MY SECOND BOOK, BAPTISM ANNULLED. In Chapter 18 of my book about an interfaith custody battle that I fought for my older son, my ex-wife's lawyer (Schmidt)  asked me some questions during a deposition that have bearing on the issue of what I thought happened to Jesus after the Cross. The relevant extract is as follows with Schmidt questioning me in 1984 about my first book (published under the pen name Etomar Ben Roffman in 1978, when I held a higher opinion of Islamic beliefs than I do now):

       “How do you explain all the people who saw the resurrected Christ?” Schmidt asked.

       “There’s an important common thread that runs through the Gospels,” I answered. “It’s one I missed in my original research … failure of those who knew Jesus to clearly recognize him after the Cross.  In Matthew 28:17 we read of their doubt.  In Mark 16:12 we’re told that Jesus appeared in another form.  In the 24th chapter of Luke we find that Jesus had told the apostles about his return on the third day, which it then was.  Although Mary Magdalene had informed them that she had seen the risen Christ, still when they themselves met him, their eyes were kept from recognizing him for what must have been around six hours or so.  In John’s story, Mary Magdalene at first thought the risen Jesus to be the gardener.  And as for the tale of Doubting Thomas, it’s missing from the synoptic Gospels.  It took sixty years for someone to fabricate the story and for it to make its way into John’s account.  I now believe that someone who didn’t even look like Jesus succeeded in impersonating the slain rabbi.”

       “Why would anyone want to do that?” Schmidt asked.

       “I can’t say.  Perhaps the impostor thought he would be proclaimed King of the Jews.  Maybe he was just playing a sick joke on those who refused to believe that Jesus was gone.  Or he might have been following the Nazarene’s instructions.  We can only speculate what happened.  There’s one other possible explanation besides that of an impostor.”

       “Which is?” Schmidt asked.

       “Well, I must say,” I answered.  “Jesus was only on the cross for about nine hours.  It usually took two days to die up there.  If he survived the cross and piercing (though unconscious at first) and was placed in the tomb still alive, he could have escaped his tomb.  It was above ground.  Later when he was well enough to walk about, he might have disguised himself to keep from being caught and thrown back on the cross again.  Thus the stories about his friends not recognizing him until they heard his voice.  Who knows?”

       Obviously, there is reason to question exactly what happened after the crucifixion. But I don't think the answer to the recognition problem can be legitimately found by placing Judas on the Cross. Mary Magdalene, the Apostles, Doubting Thomas, all should have been familiar with Judas. None of them recognized him either.

      There are some versions of Talmud Sanhedrin 43a that address the crucifixion of Jesus, but many versions have removed the section in question due to persecution from Christians. I have personally seen both versions, but the critical words are not in the Schottenstein edition of the Talmud that I own.

STATISTICAL AND THEOLOGICAL SIGNIFICANCE OF THE MATRIX. As per my standard protocol, no statistical significance is attached to the 9-letter axis term, here JUDAS (is) JESUS at its second lowest skip (64,250 in wrapped Torah). Note: There is no state of being verb is in Hebrew. It is implied where appropriate (often the subject of argument) on translation. On this matrix THE KORAN, while parallel to the axis term, is not at a special case skip (+/-1 or the absolute skip of the axis term). Therefore I used the Roffman Skip Formula and Skip Tables to determine the frequency of the term. The word MESSIAH was likewise not at a special case skip. There was about 1 chance in 2 that it would be on the matrix. Odds against having both THE KORAN and MESSIAH in the 408-letter matrix with JUDAS (is) JESUS were about 701 to 1. The matrix is therefore rated as statistically significant. I sought professor ZUFARI and found her name, but not until I expanded the matrix from 408 to 1,032 letters. That dropped the significance of the matrix to roughly one fourth of what it was, so the name is not significant here.

       When it comes to the theological significance of the matrix, the Muslims cannot take any joy it. They believe that the Jews altered the Torah. If we did change an Ishmael (5 letters in Hebrew) to an Isaac (4 letters in Hebrew), any original encoding of a matrix like this with an Equidistant Letter Spacing (ELS) of 64,250 letters for the axis term, and more than one required computer pass through the 304,805 letters of Torah, would have been destroyed. So if this matrix is deliberately encoded, Islam's claim that Koran replaces Torah is proven wrong. That's a high price to ask of Muslims, especially when the Koran does not specifically mention Judas in conjunction with the man crucified.

       Can Christians take joy in this matrix? Not directly from the axis term alone. Obviously they will not want to trash their New Testaments to start teaching that Judas died on the Cross. But Christians and Jews can take comfort in the main a-priori key word shown on the matrix, THE KORAN. Religious Christians and Jews do believe that the Torah we have now is the original. Therefore, the significance that both these religions can take away from this matrix is that THE KORAN is compatible with the belief that JUDAS (is) JESUS and the MESSIAH. This does not mean that either belief is correct. It only means that the Torah Code predicted these particular Muslim beliefs.