The Muslims have no evidence that Jesus did not die on the cross. All they have is a verse in the Qur'an which has been misconstrued.
This 200-year-old hypothesis continues to be the subject of debate in popular circles, but
the scholarly literature considers it uncontroversial that Jesus died during his crucifixion.
Swoon hypothesis - Wikipedia
The death of Christ on the cross in confirmed by early historians, heathen and Jewish. Tacitus, the historian who was a heathen, wrote in the year A.D. 55, detailing passages about the crucifixion of Christ and his sufferings.
THE TESTIMONY OF SECULAR HISTORY
Do historians believe Jesus died on the cross?
Most scholars in the third quest for the historical Jesus consider the crucifixion indisputable, as do Bart Ehrman, John Dominic Crossan and James Dunn. Although scholars agree on the historicity of the crucifixion, they differ on the reason and context for it, e.g. both E.
Historical Jesus - Wikipedia
I don’t doubt there was a person named Jesus, nor that he started the “church”, which weren’t a building of any source, but that the church were masses of local people that he preached to, during his short ministry through Galilee & Judaea...most of preaching would have occurred outdoors.
The problems are not with the sources we have now, but that there are no contemporary sources to Jesus, in his lifetime. The Pauline letters are earlier than the gospels, but Paul never witnessed the ministry, nor the crucifixion…what he knew about Jesus came from others.
The gospels were written OVER THIRTY YEARS after Jesus’ supposed crucifixion and resurrection, with the gospel of Mark being the earliest, between mid-60s and mid-70s CE. So about a generation and a half later. The gospels of Matthew and Luke were composed between mid-70 and late 80s CE, while that of John was wrItten post 90 CE. But these gospels were originally anonymously, the names that were given to these 4 gospels were only applied to these gospels during the 2nd century CE.
When I write of something being “contemporary”, then I would mean any person & events were written within a month to 5 years, with a maximum of 10 years. The more years that passed, the less reliable they are.
And there are no contemporary sources to recorded Jesus’ ministry and resurrection.
As there are no contemporary sources, the best we have, are the gospels, except much of the gospel accounts are unreliable. Especially as they were composed 30-PLUS YEARS LATER.
That would also include those early non-Christian sources - like Antiquities of the Jews by Flavius Josephus (around mid-90s CE) and the Annals by Publius Cornelius Tacitus (115 CE).
one of the things that you must understand with written history, is that if it weren’t contemporary, than these historians like Josephus and Tacitus, would have to rely on earlier sources, and as Jesus’ crucifixion were on public Roman records, we don’t really know anything about Tacitus’ source or sources.
If You have read Annals 15, then you would see the main focus were about the Christians during the reign of Nero, in 64 or 65 CE, when the fire broke out in Rome, and that Nero blamed the fire on the Christians. What Tacitus wrote about Pontius Pilate punishing a man called Christo, was merely allusion to the crucifixion event. This mentions of Jesus and Pilate is not really good to establish the historicity of gospel accounts. We certainly don’t know if Tacitus knew anything about the gospels, so where did Tacitus get his source from?
Plus it doesn’t help the fact, that Tacitus referred to Pilate as being a procurator of Judaea, not a prefectus. The governor of Judaea was a prefect during the reigns of Augustus and Tiberius; no procurators were appointed to Judaea, until the reign of Claudius. There is an inscribed stone, known today as the Pilate Stone, as it recorded him to being a prefect…the stone was more contemporary than the gospels and the Annals.
A written history that were written contemporary would be far more reliable than something that were written 60 to 80 years later (Josephus & Tacitus, respectively).
For instance of a contemporary history, Josephus wrote of Romans quelling a rebellion of the Jews, that resulted in the destruction of Jerusalem. As Josephus actually took part in these events, his Jewish-Roman War would consider “contemporary”…as he saw both sides of the war…as hostage and later friend of Titus (son of Vespasian). With his friendship with Titus, Josephus would have access to Roman records and sources to the war.
While Antiquities of the Jews, Josephus was recording many events that occurred before Josephus was born, so he would have relied heavily on sources that he was never eyewitness to…so he would have to rely on Jewish, Greek and Roman sources. The further back in time, the less reliable his writings are. For instance, as I said, he had access to Roman records, like when governors were appointed, or when the census would have taken place. His writing about Herod’s last 10 years of his life and when Rome turn Judaea would be far more reliable than the gospels of Matthew and Luke.
Luke 2 for instance, recorded that were census carried out throughout the Roman Empire, and the gospel stated that census was carried out when Herod the Great was still alive and when Jesus was born. But no such widespread census were carried out the Roman Empire, and Josephus rightly stated that census was only carried out in 6 CE, ten years after Herod’s death and when Rome turned Judaea into a Roman province.
Plus, people were only taxed where they lived at the time, not where a person’s tribal ancestors have once lived. So if Joseph was living in Nazareth, Galilee, then there are no reasons as to why Joseph would go to Bethlehem to register in the Roman census. The gospels clearly unreliable as to regarding to Jesus’ birth.