Did Jesus Really Die?

A Muslim may say:

Jesus never died on the cross? Allah took Him up to heaven and put Jesus likeness on someone else to die instead of Him.

Islamic tradition does teach something like that (Quran 4:157). The story in this Quranic verse says that the Jews thought that they crucified and killed Jesus but that was not true, because it was only made to appear like that to them.

Still Islam does not give us exact answer or narrative of what really happened. So if Jesus was not killed, who was killed? We get different interpretations and stories from different Islamic sources. Like:

1. God made Judas who betrayed him look like Him (Jesus) and was crucified instead of Jesus.
2. One of Jesus’ disciples volunteered to die for Him.
3. It was Simon of Cyrene the one who carried His cross.
4. It was one of the Roman soldiers.

Add to that other theories that He was on the cross but did not die and so on.

The question is, why it is so hard to accept a simple fact that Jesus Christ was crucified and died on the cross? Did not Islam say that He is just a human being and a prophet? So why He does not die like all the other prophets?

According to Islam, Jesus has a mystery in his birth (from a virgin mother without a father) and at the end of His life on earth (still alive in heaven and did not die). He is unique and the only one who is still alive today from among all these other prophets who we visit their graves.

So what is so special about that Jesus? Why can’t we accept the simple narrative in the Gospel that He died on the cross?

According to Islamic tradition, the Jews killed a lot of other prophets before . So what is so special about Jesus if He was just another prophet? Why don’t we accept His death? It is more simpler and easier to comprehend than all these other interpretations of Jesus being substituted with someone else.

I’d like to leave you to this thought, think about it. What is so special about Jesus so He did not die like the rest of us?