Did Jesus (as) not foretell his own death in the Bible?

Jesus (as) himself said that his people would be given no sign except the sign of the prophet Jonah. Jonah did not die but survived a seemingly deadly ordeal, and this is how the prophecy of Jesus (as) should be understood as well.

The Gospel of Luke reports that Jesus (as) said he must suffer many things, be rejected and be killed, and rise on the third day. Many see this as a clear prediction of his death on the cross. But Jesus (as) made another prophecy that describes what would actually happen.

When people demanded a sign from him, he said that no sign would be given except the sign of the prophet Jonah. Jonah was placed in a situation in which a person would normally die. For three days and three nights there seemed to be no way out. Yet Jonah did not die, nor was he brought back from the dead. He survived. Those who heard these words at the time would have understood them this way: Jesus (as) would pass through a deadly danger and come out of it alive.

A true prophet does not contradict himself. If Jesus (as) compared his fate to that of Jonah, he cannot at the same time have foretold a real death. The comparison with Jonah only works if Jesus (as) survived the danger of death. He too was not three days on the cross, but three days and nights in peril of death.

Why, then, do the accounts speak of him being killed? Under Roman law, anyone who helped a condemned man escape death was punished himself. For the early followers it was dangerous to say that Jesus (as) had never died at all. It was safer to speak of death and revival. This explains such words without attributing a contradiction to Jesus (as).

The Holy Qur’an confirms that God saved Jesus (as) from death on the cross and later caused him to die a natural death. Anyone is free to read these passages differently. But the sign of Jonah, which Jesus (as) chose himself, speaks clearly for his survival.