the body of knowledge that enables one to distinguish truth from falsehood, which the Muslims possess.

Thus the Gospels currently in the hands of the Christians fall into this very category. They contain much of the Messiah’s words, deeds, and miracles, but they also contain, beyond any doubt, material that is erroneous about him. Even if the first compilers were not suspected of deliberate fabrication, a single person—or two, three, or even four—can certainly slip into error or forgetfulness, especially when recounting something he once heard or saw only to narrate it again many years later. Mistakes of this sort are frequent, and there was no error-protected community whose collective acceptance and verification of those writings would yield certain, binding knowledge; nor could such a community unite upon falsehood. The disciples themselves numbered only twelve men.

The crucifixion story is one of those matters in which confusion arose. Proof has established that the man who was crucified was not the Messiah—peace be upon him—but someone made to resemble him; the people merely assumed he was the Messiah. None of the disciples actually saw Jesus crucified; rather, some Jews who witnessed the scene informed them of it.

(Some people say those informants intentionally lied; most hold that they were simply mistaken. For this reason the majority of Muslims, when explaining Allah’s statement, “but it was made to appear so to them” (Qur’an 4:157), refer the pronoun to those informants. Those who adopt the first view, however, take the pronoun in “made to appear so”