Bart Ehrman Destroys Islam in 3 Minutes

How much can we be  sure about the crucifixion of Jesus and  whether he was indeed crucified?

I know in Islam the teaching is that he was not actually  crucified. I think on a historical basis,  Jesus was absolutely crucified. I I think  that as a historian there’s almost no doubt about that. In case your audience doesn’t know, I don’t identify as a  Christian. I was raised a  Christian but I’m an atheist now. I don’t have a particular stake in any  of this information personally but I  think the crucifixion of Jesus is probably one of  the best attested events of his life. It’s found all over the place,  in our early sources, it’s even mentioned  by non-Christian sources. It’s not the kind of thing  that Christians would have made up about  him if they wanted to make up legends. If they wanted to make up something  about Jesus, it wouldn’t be that he got  killed by the enemy,  tortured to death. What they would have made up is  that he became the king and he’s sitting  on the throne in Jerusalem. But they  couldn’t make that up because everybody  knew it wasn’t true. And so they had to  say “He got crucified” but then  they ended up saying that because he was  crucified that was significant, that it  was the plan of God.  They’re explaining it because they gotta  explain it because he was crucified.

The Islamic account is very strange. People think that Jesus was crucified, somebody was  crucified but it wasn’t Jesus. It was  just somebody else  who people thought was Jesus and it’s a  very  strange thing.

It didn’t start with Islam. There’s a Christian teacher in the  second century named Basilides who was an agnostic  and he wrote an agnostic gospel. We don’t have the gospel  anymore but we have a church father who  talks about it and in his  account what he says is that there’s a fellow in the gospels, Jesus, who is  carrying his cross and they impel  somebody else to carry the cross for him  to the place of crucifixion. According to Basilides, what  happened is this other person whose name  was Simon from Cyrene, which is in North Africa. Simon of Cyrene carries the cross  and when he gets there, Jesus pulls an  identity switch (he’s the son of God, he  can do miracles). He makes Simon of Cyrene  look just like him  and he looks just like Simon of Cyrene. The Romans think they’re  crucifying Jesus but they’re crucifying  Simon and Jesus is standing by the cross  laughing. Presumably, Simon didn’t think it was so  funny. “Help me out of here!”