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The substitution hypothesis or twin hypothesis refers to several theories explaining the sightings of a risen Jesus not by physical resurrection, but by the existence of a different person, a twin or lookalike who could have impersonated Jesus after his death, or died in the place of Jesus on the cross.
Contents
Christian and Gnostic traditions
The Acts of Thomas and the Book of Thomas the Contender, both thought to have been written in the 2nd or 3rd century.., state that the Apostle Thomas was the twin brother of Jesus, a claim that is in part supported by the etymology of Thomas and the name Judas (distinct from Judas Iscariot) that he is given in other early texts and traditions. These early texts do not put forward the substitution hypothesis with respect to the death and resurrection of Jesus, but the Acts of Thomas contain an episode in which the risen Jesus is mistaken for Thomas the Apostle
The Second Treatise of the Great Seth, a Gnostic text also from the 2nd or 3rd century, says that Simon of Cyrene died in the place of Jesus
In the Gospel of Barnabas, often considered to be of medieval origin, Judas Iscariot is given the likeness of Jesus and crucified in his place.
Paul William Roberts reports in his 1995 travel narrative Journey of the Magi: In Search of the Birth of Jesus, that contemporary Mandaeans hold that Thomas the Apostle was the twin brother of Jesus and was crucified in Jesus's place.
Islamic perspective
A verse in the Qur'an saying of Jesus that "they killed him not, nor crucified him, but so it was made to appear to them" has been interpreted by many Muslims to mean that a different man who only appeared to be Jesus died in his place. Muslim scholars do not agree on the identity of the substitute, but he is often thought to have been one of the Apostles or Simon of Cyrene.
20th and 21st centuries
In her 2011 book The Judas Goat: The Substitution Theory of the Crucifixion, Tracy R. Twyman uses Christian traditions and speculations on religious symbolism in the Gospel of John to argue that the Apostles Thomas and Judas were one same person, the twin of Jesus, and that this Judas Thomas is the one who would have died on the cross.