One Islamic version of the resurrection reminds me of one of my favourite books – A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens.

Spoiler alert: In the book, the hero looks very similar to a man sentenced to the guillotine and takes his place at the end.

The Islamic version of the resurrection I’m referring to, is that God turned Judas to look and sound like Jesus. They then crucified Judas who protested he’s not Jesus.

“God gave Jesus’ appearance to the one who revealed his location to those persecuting him. He was replaced as Jesus and the executioners thought the victim was Jesus, causing everyone to believe that Jesus was crucified.”

— Wikipedia

And for their saying, “We have killed the Messiah, Jesus, the son of Mary, the Messenger of God.” In fact, they did not kill him, nor did they crucify him, but it appeared to them as if they did. Indeed, those who differ about him are in doubt about it. They have no knowledge of it, except the following of assumptions. Certainly, they did not kill him. Rather, God raised him up to Himself. God is Mighty and Wise.

— Quran 4:157–4:158

Also the Nag Hammadi library doesn’t say it was Judas, just someone called Simon.

“I was not afflicted at all. Those there punished me, yet I did not die in solid reality but in what appears, in order that I not be put to shame by them. For my death which they think happened, (happened) to them in their error and blindness. They nailed their man up to their death. Another, their father, was the one who drank the gall and the vinegar; it was not I. They were hitting me with the reed; another was the one who lifted up the cross on his shoulder, who was Simon. Another was the one on whom they put the crown of thorns. But I was rejoicing in the height over all the riches of the archons and the offspring of their error and their conceit, and I was laughing at their ignorance.”

— Nag Hammadi library

But for the sake of this I’ll assume it was Judas who ended up on the cross.

How I like to think of it is that Judas knew how important that Jesus was and happened to look and sound similar to him, so allowed himself to be crucified in the place of Jesus.

Perhaps Judas did betray Jesus and wanted to make up for it.

If Judas did the switch in the same way as the character from A Tale of Two Cities, then Judas goes into the jail to see Jesus with a friend, then they drug Jesus, swap clothes and then the friend takes Jesus out unconscious, dressed as Judas. Were Jesus to wake up 3 days later in a cave that would help the story nicely.

I don’t know. But it’s would very neatly explain how something like the tale of the resurrection could come about. Such an extreme event, would be rare, but is possible.

The New Testament maintains that Judas hanged himself, or was killed by a chariot – so they agree that Judas ended up dead.

In my story Judas is a hero, the most wronged man in all of Christian history.

Judas died so that Jesus might live.

Update

This gets a bit juicier. There is ‘doubting’ Thomas. It turns out that Thomas looked uncannily like Jesus, even so that Thomas is apparently based on ‘Twin’. I think I read somewhere else that there was also a James that looked very similar to Jesus. In the land of farce and make believe, this doesn’t make it any more true, but it makes it more plausible. There’s now four candidates who could have been up on the cross instead of Jesus – Simon, Judas, James and Thomas.