The Quran, when it comes to the nature of Jesus, outright agrees with the New Testament in some ways and totally deviates from it in others. I will give credit where it is due, yet also draw attention to the aspects of Islamic Christology that contradict both the Bible and historical evidences. In one sense Islam regards Jesus highly. It calls him someone who was tasked by God with presenting the Gospel and confirming the Torah, yet it also denies his death entirely.
Surah 4 summarizes key points about the Islamic position on Jesus:
Surah 4:155-158--". . . No! God has sealed them in their disbelief, so they believe only a little--and because they disbelieved and uttered a terrible slander against Mary, and said, 'We have killed the Messiah, Jesus, son of Mary, the Messenger of God.' (They did not kill him, nor did they crucify him, though it was made to appear like that to them; those that disagreed about him are full of doubt, with no knowledge to follow, only supposition: they certainly did not kill him--No! God raised him up to Himself."
First of all, the Jews (the context reveals that the Jews are the people in question in these verses) did not crucify anyone, as the Torah both does not prescribe execution methods like crucifixion and condemns them [1], so the implication in the text that the Jews thought they had directly crucified and killed Jesus is totally unfounded. Second of all, this passage contradicts what is actually supported by historical evidence by saying that Jesus wasn't crucified and didn't die, but merely appeared to. Islamic Christology, then, ultimately admits that Jesus existed, even calling him a servant of God, but then denies what the historical data actually points to: that he died via Roman (certainly not Jewish!) crucifixion. Josephus, Tacitus, the Babylonian Talmud--there are definitely sources that provide historical evidence for the crucifixion of Jesus!
It is the Bible that says the crucifixion occurred as recorded by non-Christian historians. Since Muslims can conjure up no historical data to reinforce the claim that Jesus never died and was even never crucified to begin with, the New Testament teaching that Jesus did die is the one out of the two claims that is most compatible with external evidences.
Only one verse later, though, Surah 4 actually says something that, ironically, is similar to something Philippians 2:9-11 teaches:
Surah 4:159--"There is not one of the People of the Book who will not believe in [Jesus] before his death, and on the Day of Resurrection he will be a witness against them.)"
The Quran does say that Jesus has some special eschatological significance in that he will eventually condemn the Jews who did not follow Islam, which does somewhat parallel what Philippians 2 describes--that every knee will bow to Christ and every tongue will confess his authority and divine nature. The differences between this and the similar Quranic teaching, of course, are that Philippians says that every person will acknowledge Christ, not just non-Christian Jews, and that Jesus is actually called divine.
It is indeed important that I show where the Quran does teach things about Jesus that are Biblically true. Elsewhere, the Quran affirms the Torah by saying that Jesus came on behalf of God to testify to its veracity:
Surah 5:46--"We sent Jesus, son of Mary, in their footsteps, to confirm the Torah that had been sent before him: We gave him the Gospel with guidance, light, and confirmation of the Torah already revealed--a guide and lesson for those who take heed of God."
As I've explained before, this is ironic, because one notion of the Quran that contradicts the Torah disproves Islam, and in an earlier post I showed how the Quran contradicts the Torah on a crucial matter of justice [2], though there are other disparities I could write about in the future. All it takes is one inconsistency for Islam to be falsified, whether or not the Torah is true, meaning that, since the Quran contradicts the Torah, Islam can be rationally disproven as a system and legitimately set aside, leaving us with no reason to think that Jesus merely "appeared" to die.
[1]. https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2016/12/we-are-getting-what-our-deeds-deserve.html
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